A few things: First, huge thanks to whoever recommended “Somebody Feed Phil.” Phil probably has the best job in the world, and he knows everybody. On an episode I recently watched, he had lunch in DC with Pete Buttigieg. Another episode from a few years back featured a Zoom call with Norman Lear, then 100 …
Climate Change
Climate Solutions: Debunking EV and Battery Myths
by TaMara| 87 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change, Climate Change Solutions, Positive Climate News, This Is A Doom & Gloom Free-Zone
Despair only limits future action – Simon Clark ========== This is going to be a quick hit, but I know I got a little cranky in the last post with some of the persistent myths around EVs, so these two videos are a good at debunking those myths. Join Quentin Willson and Dr. Euan McTurk …
Climate Solutions: Debunking EV and Battery MythsPost + Comments (87)
Wise to the lies? Bored of BS? Fed-up of FUD? Misinformation about Electric Vehicles and Clean Energy is at an all-time high. Vested interests have almost limitless funds with which to pollute public discourse, and it’s easy to feel powerless to prevent that.
With your help that can change. The Fully Charged SHOW and FairCharge are coming together to Stop BS and to combat this ‘*fear, uncertainty and doubt’ through *fast-turnaround infographic rebuttals*, *proactively placing spokespeople on mainstream media*, and *engaging with political influencers*
I have a couple of videos of people who have experience with EVs and cold weather, here’s one:
Max demonstrates the importance of battery pre-conditioning using his home charging station and charge scheduling with his Polestar 2 on a cold journey to the mountains from Colorado’s front range. Not all electric cars have this feature, but increasingly many do and it’s great for reducing the range hit of cold weather!
I love that he’s driving from Boulder, CO to Keystone, CO, which here, is a very typical weekend trip – up to the mountains to ski.
Here’s a longer, more wonky video from these guys on winter EV battery myths and charging tips.
I wish I could find where I bookmarked my MI guy, who has been driving EVs in winter for years. I’ll keep searching!
It’s not so much an issue on short daily commutes, but on those longer trips, you’ll need to take some extra steps in extreme cold. In normal cold weather, I have not noticed any range loss – but my car does stay in the garage when not in use. In other info I’ve seen – you can lose charge (less than 20-ish miles) if your car is outside in the cold overnight or while you’re at work. But even with that Polestar’s abismal range (what he’s driving in the video) – about 150 miles in winter weather – you will probably be fine for a typical day of driving. I will say, if you’re thinking of an EV – don’t skimp, get the heated seats because your cabin will take forever to warm.
Hope these three videos help dispel some common myths. If you click on the makers of the videos, you’ll find lots of informative videos on similar topics.
Finally, the next two installments in the Carbon Cowboy documentary:
USDA grazing specialist Doug Peterson has spent his entire career teaching reticent farmers and ranchers to focus on their soil health, even if, and especially if, that means adopting new ways to graze. Peterson walks the walk, practicing and experimenting new methods on his and his dad’s farm outside of Newtown, Missouri. Filmed near Newtown, Missouri
Michael Thompson, a young farmer in Kansas, is regenerating his soils with no-till, cover-crops practices coupled with Adaptive Multi-Paddock (AMP) grazing – giving his farm resilience during the severe 2011 and 2012 droughts. While his neighbors’ soils are washing down gullies and blowing away towards the east, Michael is building a farm he can leave to his children. His exemplary work was given the Kansas Farm Bureau Natural Resources Award. Filmed in Norton, Kansas
Climate scientist Michael E Mann & historian Timothy D Snyder define doomerism:
Doomerism is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.
It is how authoritarians win. Let’s try to fight the doom.
This is a doom and gloom free zone.
Climate Solutions: Good People Doing Good Things
by TaMara| 129 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change, Climate Change Solutions, Positive Climate News, This Is A Doom & Gloom Free-Zone
This is will be a quick hit, but I wanted to keep going on sharing good people working on climate solutions. There will be a couple more videos on regenerative farming practices from the Carbon Cowboys series and a few other videos on other topics. I will branch out to other technology going forward, but …
Climate Solutions: Good People Doing Good ThingsPost + Comments (129)
And here’s an excerpt of the rest of the story (h/t Sandia Blanca):
The Weldons, new parents who met at a climate change protest in 2014 in Manhattan and spent their first date watching TED Talks on the environment, started their business on 5 acres of Orion’s family land in 2015.
After two years, they co-founded the farmers market as an avenue to sell heritage pork and pastured chicken and eggs alongside more than a dozen other producers, from bakers and honey-makers to vegetable farmers and prepared food vendors.
=========
A fellow environmentalist, the Nelsons were interested in how these premodern and indigenous practices could be implemented on her family’s 500-acre ranch just a few miles away.
On this Sunday in May, (Annie) Nelson finally introduced herself to Tina and Orion and their 2-month-old baby boy. She asked if they might be interested in helping transform the Nelsons’ family garden, so she invited them to the Luck Ranch to check it out.
“After the market, the three of us trucked over to Luck Ranch,” Orion Weldon says. “We talked about the philosophy of land and soil, and then she said, ‘We’ve been watching you for about four years, and we wanted to make sure you (can do) what you claim you do. We’d like you to create a regenerative farm on Luck Ranch.’”
==========
This guy and his passion for changing the world, one house at a time. And for finding a way to eliminate having to use the climate disaster that is concrete.
===========
And finally, I wanted to highlight some of reviews on the new Kia EV9. I stumbled on this last time I was at the dealership for service (I drive a KIA Niro PHEV) and was smitten. And turns out I am not alone. Most of you are probably like, why is such a big 7-seater SUV a good thing? Because it’s a 5000 lb EV that gets 300 miles to a charge, and charges to 80% in 20 minutes (which I’m learning is how you want to charge on a road trip).
And there are so many extra large ICE vehicles on the road right now, because people have reasons – kids, business, deliveries, etc – that replacing ICE vehicles with practical, large EVs is a big step. Meet them where they are. They are not going to give up their F-150s and Grand Cherokees for a Bolt.
Here are the reviews I enjoyed: Edmunds, Fully Charged (which besides videos does electric shows all over the world, highlighting the newest technologies), Auto Focus and MotorTrend
From the reviews I’ve watched, it seems this SUV surpasses any expectations.
And I’m posting this one, not just because he’s a riot and a Kiwi, but the company he works for, EcoTricity is something I think I’ll dive deeper into in another post. Also because his hobby is restoring classic ICE vehicles into EVs. That’s how I stumbled on him, his FB videos on those restorations.
That’s enough for today. Just a reminder:
Despair only limits future action – Simon Clark
If you want to share any links to good climate news info in the comments, I’ll check them out.
This is a doom and gloom free zone.
Climate Solutions: Carbon Cowboys and Regenerative Farming
by TaMara| 72 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change, Climate Change Solutions, Make The World A Better Place, Positive Climate News, This Is A Doom & Gloom Free-Zone
As I wrote previously, I want to start combining our good news posts with climate solutions. I want to highlight good people doing good things in regard to the climate crisis. It’s important to know, despite what is often a deluge of bad news on the climate, good things are happening. I’ll be highlighting regenerative …
Climate Solutions: Carbon Cowboys and Regenerative FarmingPost + Comments (72)
Fourth generation cattleman Will Harris shares his evolution from industrial, commodity cowboy to sustainable, humane food producer. A growing group of consumers look at beef consumption as a terrible environmental and moral choice. Harris’s work in southwest Georgia shows how he produces healthy beef that regenerates his soils and allow the animals to express their natural instincts. The 150+ jobs he has created are breathing new life into a community left behind and forgotten due to, as Will says, the industrialization of agriculture. Filmed in Bluffton, Georgia
Part 2 of 10
===============
It’s not just farmers adding solutions to the climate issues. Beavers are important participants in climate change solutions, too (I will also be highlighting other rewilding projects that have brought more changes than anyone thought possible)
More and more scientists are starting to ask the question: Could beavers be the ally we’ve been waiting for when it comes to saving the environment? Travel with host Joe Hanson to Central Oregon where a group of scientists set up a kind of beaver laboratory to learn more about the crepuscular creatures. We’ll also speak with a scientist who studies how beavers help to mitigate wildfire and drought.
California’s drought is a multi-billion dollar issue that we’ve dumped a lot of resources into, but climate scientists are finding that working with what nature provides could be more effective than our synthetic solutions. They say sometimes, you just gotta leave it to the beavers. (TaMara: groan)
==================
And finally, from bogs to cranberries and back to bogs:
Commenter Marion sent me a link, long ago, for a “Good News” site and I doubt she’d expect me to use it first in a Climate Solutions post, but that was the lead story when I clicked over:
Though she and Schulman were only first-generation, they’d envisioned keeping the roughly 600 acres of legacy farmland pieced together into Tidmarsh Farms in their own family for many years to come. That looked unlikely if they kept growing cranberries — and impossible if the land wound up in the hands of a developer. So in 2008, Davenport retired from the media research lab she’d founded at MIT and went all in on conservation. It was the beginning of a multi-year effort to revive vanished wetlands that would bring new life not only to her property, but to an entire industry increasingly burdened by climate change, while doing some good for the climate in the process. Continue reading…
==================
And finally this video summarizes information I have been reading in a few places. (Simon is a Dr in atmospheric physics and his videos are pretty easy to understand and full of good information)
Despair only limits future action – Simon Clark
More details at this link.
=================
I’m going to aggregate all these posts here: Positive Climate News that you can go back to at anytime to review (you can see all the climate posts under the Climate Solutions tag). I’ll revisit all these areas as I find more information on each topic. But I’ll also expand to batteries, solar, wind, EVs, and infrastructure. I have information bookmarked from all over the world, which I find extremely exciting.
I feel like I have a handle on how to proceed with positive news. And with luck we’ll also cover activism and how you can kick some politicians and corporations in the butt to get them onboard (mostly politicians, most successful businesses understand that this is a problem
I think this is a good start. I look forward to continuing to share these good folks doing good things.
If you want to share any links to good climate news info in the comments, I’ll check them out.
This is a doom and gloom free zone.
Climate Solutions: Positive Stories On Solutions and Innovation
by TaMara| 69 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change Solutions, Make The World A Better Place, Open Threads, Positive Climate News
I’m still not sure how I will disseminate the information I have compiled, but I’m going to just jump in. At the moment I’m fascinated with soil regeneration as a way to capture carbon and solve problems like raging wildfires, till farming/factory farming climate damage and that pesky “cows are the problem” myth (spoiler alert, …
Climate Solutions: Positive Stories On Solutions and InnovationPost + Comments (69)
I also have sources on the latest in battery technology, issues and solutions to battery recycling, new wind turbine news, and of course everyone’s favorite, the major leaps in EV range and charging infrastructure.
I’m adding this one because we were talking about solid state batteries in the last Climate post.
I will mostly be posting videos – because they are short and easy to digest. Plus if you head over to the Youtube link, there are always resources in the description, so you can delve deeper. I’ll post article links when I find them exciting and accessible. I will also post links to resources for climate solutions.
I’m not going to pretend any of these posts are going to be a deep dive into technical explanations, that’s not what I’m trying to do.
This is the trailer for a PBS series available on YouTube. I’ll have to be creative with this one because it won’t even let me embed the trailer (boo!), but it’s worth the click-over. Click on the image to see the video on YouTube.
My goal, and it’s pretty simple, is to highlight all the good people out there working on how to solve the climate crisis. No one has a silver bullet, some ideas are going to go bust, while others will probably surprise even those who worked on developing them.
I am trying to counter our natural doomism, which leaves us frozen in apathy and unable to fight the good fight. And speaking of fighting, we may have a climate activist weighing in on things we can do and helping break down the IRA benefits available. I’m not going to fully commit him right now, as his life is cra-cra and I’d rather have him fighting IRL if that’s all he has time for at the moment. But I welcome any contribution he has time to make.
Compare and contrast: Ducks in the rain and dogs on a rainy day
Critter photos because I know what you guys really want
With all that being said, I’m not going to police the comments (I don’t have the energy) but if they devolve into “that will never work” “I know better than whomever” or “it’s all hopeless” I will stop posting these. It’s difficult enough to find time to put posts together only to have the discussion derailed by the third comment.
Other than that, I’m looking forward to sharing good news stories of climate activism and solutions.
For today, this is an open thread. If you want to share any links to good climate news info in the comments, I’ll check them out.
Climate Solutions: Lots of Data
by TaMara| 105 Comments
This post is in: Climate Change, Climate Change Solutions
I haven’t even begun to process all of this information, but it’s good stuff (once you get past the scary slides about how hot temps are and how much glacier ice we’ve lost – YIKES! – but power through that!) David Roberts @drvolts Let me join literally everyone else from #energytwitter in strongly encouraging you …
Climate Solutions: Lots of DataPost + Comments (105)
Dr Volts continues: I’m going to pull out a few slides and make a few points. These are not necessarily the most important slides, just my personal triggers.
First: “team transitory” turned out to be correct, yes? That’s settled?
What technology is going to be most commonly used to firm up renewable energy? This slide suggests a pretty clear answer.
Remember when US conservatives threw a big tantrum about the shift away from incandescent light bulbs? It didn’t matter. Didn’t slow things down a bit.
Their bitching about gas stoves & ICE vehicles won’t matter either. Our media makes them loud, but they just don’t matter.
One underdiscussed development was the *huge* dropoff in hydropower production in 2023, thanks to some droughts. It heavily distorted the macro energy numbers (almost wiped out wind+solar growth!). Hydro is, somewhat contrary to its branding, more variable than we’d like.
Is minerals/metals supply going to be a meaningful constraint on the clean-energy transition? I’m looking at this graph and I’m thinking, no.
Grid congestion is rapidly rising to the top of clean energy’s problem list. We need: reconductoring; grid-enhancing technologies; new transmission; more & better coordinated DERs.
FERC & state PUCs need to get on top of this.
Nat’s slides show costs plunging for one clean energy technology after another. But not this one.
And this is the one oil & gas companies are pinning all their decarbonization hopes on! It’s a farce.
There is a ton of other good information in the presentation – it’s 200 slides, so just be prepared.
Some other fun info that popped up while I was reading Dr. Volts:
Every day I see stories about how badly EVs are suffering and how the market is ‘cooling’
I’ve ‘never’ read a piece about the fact ICE sales peaked and have *declined 7 straight years*
Weird 😏 pic.twitter.com/iv071TNTj0
— Justin Guay (@Guay_JG) February 1, 2024
Also, I know we’ve had some discussions about excessive EV battery fires – turns out – more myth than fact – link here (this is a good primer to a lot of info I’ve read over the past few months – due to my concerns about a recall on my vehicle, which has thankfully been repaired, phew!)
There is some interesting info on recycling batteries here – I’ve only just skimmed it, but I’ll pass on the link now.
David Roberts
We are just now entering the S-curve of exponential electric vehicle (EV) adoption, which — given that EV batteries tend to last 10 to 15 years — means we have not yet experienced a huge wave of retired lithium-ion batteries. Analysts expect that wave to show up in earnest around 2030, which leaves us just enough time to scale up, drive down the cost, and perhaps most importantly, decarbonize the technologies needed to recycle all those batteries.
I have bunch climate stuff set aside, and it’s going to be my “good news” focus for a while, I just need to figure out the best way to present it and how often. I may just jump in next week and we’ll take it one post at a time.
I want to tell you about the Kia EV9 – but I’ll wait for another thread, where I can explain why it’s exciting, if way out of my price range. The reviews are amazing and the video reviews are a hoot (to quote my Gram).
Hope the info, as much as it may be overload, gives you hope on the future of climate solutions.
Ominous Signs (Open Thread)
by Betty Cracker| 171 Comments
This post is in: 2024 Elections, How about that weather?, Open Threads, Politics
The wind is howling, and the sky is filled with pendulous, bruise-colored clouds. We keep getting ominous weather alerts like this: I’m keeping the feeders up as long as possible to serve hungry customers like this Yellow-Throated Warbler: But I’ll take them down within the hour so they won’t become missiles if the storm(s) are …
- Go to page 1
- Go to page 2
- Go to page 3
- Interim pages omitted …
- Go to page 44
- Go to Next Page »