[Aug 7-13’23] Humans are worse than super vulcanic eruptions

Mental health issues correlated with heat, solar is king and battery bloat in EVs could backfire.

Welcome to this week’s edition of The Weekly Climate 🎉

References: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] and [6].

Just a short heads up: Next week’s newsletter will be the last in about a month as I’m off on a much needed vacation. As always subscriptions will be paused during that time i.e from Aug 21.

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‼️News you can’t miss

Here’s one important scary/bad (🙀), good (😻), interesting (😼) and fossil (💩) news item.

🙀 Mental health issues are strongly correlated with extreme heat

😻 Solar installations globally are growing 50% YoY

😼 Battery bloat in EVs could backfire

💩 Humans are emitting carbon dioxide 200x faster than super volcanice eruptions that caused the last mass extinctions

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👩‍⚕️ Status: Climate & Science

Let’s look at how we’re doing this week!

[#humans] — This is insane and to me is a great picture of how much damage we as humans are causing to our environment, but apparently humans are emitting carbon dioxide 200 times 😳 faster than supervolcanic eruptions that caused Earth's most severe mass extinctions, according to a study by Curtin University. The research revealed that the Kerguelen large volcanic province, an enormous body of lava in the southern Indian Ocean, was linked to a comparatively minor global oceanic anoxic event, despite being the second-largest series of super volcanic eruptions since complex life began on Earth. The researchers found that the Kerguelen eruptions emitted at least five times less CO2 and at a rate 30 times slower than volcanic eruptions that wiped out entire life forms. The study highlights the importance of slowing down carbon dioxide emissions to mitigate Earth’s climate change and avoid potentially disastrous consequences that are projected based on current human-induced emissions.

[#wildfire] — Wildfires emit dark brown carbon particles that absorb light and cause more warming than previously thought. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found that these particles are four times more abundant in plumes than black carbon and are resistant to sunlight-driven photochemical bleaching. The study highlights the need to revise climate models to account for the unexpected effects of brown carbon in wildfire smoke and the urgency of climate change mitigation efforts.

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📰 The 7 Grand Challenges

⚡️Decarbonize Electricity

Clean electricity is the one do-or-die challenge we must solve.

[#solarking] — According to Rethink Energy, global solar installations are growing at a rate of 50% per year, with China leading the way and accounting for 55% of installations in Q2 2023. The rest of the world is predicted to install 160 GW, with Europe, the US, India, and Latin America all contributing. Rethink Energy predicts that the world will install 360 GW of solar power in 2023, with the final figure potentially closer to 380 GW. The solar industry is expected to continue growing consistently, with tens of billions of dollars invested in manufacturing capacity.

[#fusion] — Scientists at the National Ignition Facility in California have successfully recreated a fusion ignition reaction, producing an even higher energy yield than their previous experiment. While fusion reactions have traditionally required more energy in than they produce, these breakthroughs demonstrate the potential to harness the same physics that fuels the stars to develop clean energy in the form of laser-induced fusion on Earth.

🏘 Reduce impact of urban and rural areas

Lowering the impact of urban and rural areas