tingilinde

clear cutting and biomass

Biomass is used in Europe and Japan as a "carbon neutral" fuel.  There are issues with that -  clear cutting of large trees is taking place and many climate experts believe wood burning is far from carbon neutral.  Many countries are less green than the current accounting scheme suggests.

 

coal continues to drop

It's down to 21.55% of generating capacity, which is now below renewable capacity.  

There are caveats.  This is capacity rather than real production.  Also the drop of coal has largely been displaced by natural gas which, all things being equal, is better than coal, but still bad.  And leaks during mining transport and use can greatly increase the greenhouse gas contribution from natural gas.  The Trump administration has largely halted work on monitoring these leaks. And there's the issue of China which has been accelerating it's coal use in recent years.

Seeing coal use drop in the US is important, but it's a small part of the total picture.

 

 

california oil

Los Angeles was once quite a sight.

 

desalination

It's on the rise, but it's expensive with environmental costs. 

 

dirty cruise ships

The cheap fuels used are extremely bad for NOx and SOx emissions. 

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The main purpose of this study is to analyse air pollution caused by luxury passenger cruise ships in European waters. The results show that the luxury cruise brands owned by Carnival Corporation & PLC emitted in 2017 in European seas alone 10 times more disease-causing sulphur oxide than all of Spain, Italy, Greece, France and Norway are the most exposed countries to cruise ship air pollution in Europe. Among the major cruise ports, Barcelona,Palma Mallorca and Venice are the most polluted.

Analysis also reveals that even in sulphur emission control areas (SECAs), where the most stringent marine sulphur fuel standard is mandated, air pollution from cruise ships remains of great concern. In Denmark, for example, whose coasts are entirely within SECAs, cruise ships emitted 18 times more SOX in 2017 than all 2.5 million passenger vehicles in a year. This is a reflection of both the effectiveness of the fuel quality directive for road transport fuels and the failure to implement equivalent standards for the shipping industry. Ships SOX will still remain considerably large compared to passenger car fleet even after the introduction of the global 2020 marine sulphur cap.

When it comes to nitrogen oxide (NOX) emissions, cruise ships are also of great concern despite the airpollutionimpactoftheongoingland-based dships analysed emitted as much NOX in the Danish maritime economic exclusive zone (EEZ) as half the passenger cars operating in the country itself.

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tactics behind the republican epa deregulation

Change the calculations to make it easy on polluters and hard on nature and people.

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When Tom Jorling was a Senate aide helping to draft the Clean Air Act in 1970, he often listened to executives from the nation’s biggest car companies warn that the law’s pollution-cutting requirements would put them out of business.

But during a break from one such meeting, an auto engineer told him the bosses were lying: Detroit had the expertise to make its cars much cleaner. “We can do whatever you want us to do,” Jorling recalls the technician saying. “But the executive leadership kept up with their mantra that it’s so expensive, and it’s going to threaten their viability.”

Exaggerating the costs of new regulations and understating their benefits has long been a favorite strategy in the polluters’ playbook. Now, experts say, the Trump administration wants to turn that approach into Environmental Protection Agency policy. It is pushing to rewrite the cost-benefit calculation that underpins an Obama-era rule on emissions of mercury, arsenic, and other hazardous metals from coal-fired power plants. The EPA wants to use a new, much narrower estimate of the 2011 rule’s health benefits to withdraw the legal designation that the regulation is “appropriate and necessary.”

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a 1.2 GW offshore windfarm

Currently the largest windfarm in the world.

and this:

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The UK currently has 8.2 GW of offshore wind capacity, representing 44 percent of Europe’s entire offshore wind production. The country aims to double its capacity by 2030, and is planning to build an equally large wind farm next to Hornsea One. The United States, in comparison, has just 30 megawatts of offshore wind capacity, Earther reported.

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remember freedom fries?

The Trumpsters keep pushing the patently stupid.

imagine being a competent worker in that organization

Of course the US is a petrostate. 

 

 

 

trump's climate advisor

Republicans fighting against the future of all children

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‘The demonization of carbon dioxide is just like the demonization of the poor Jews under Hitler.’
William Happer

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Harper happens to be a physicist, but that doesn't make him clueful about other areas of science. 

 

 

 

 

changing climates and your home garden

Growing zones are shifting Northward with an impact on home gardens up to large scale agriculture.   But maps are just a starting place - volatility is increasing too.