THE BRIEF [Apr 11-17’22]
THE BRIEF [Apr 11-17’22]
Climate change driving more powerful hurricanes, micro-algae can produce hydrogen, not the time to give in to climate fatalism and meet the Global Climate Coalition.
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Weekly Climate 🎉
References: [1], [2], [3], [4] and [5].
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A bit of a weird week. Not a lot of newsworthy stuff or maybe I’m just getting a bit immune to seeing the same kinds of news all over time and time again. Probably that and the fact that it’s Easter holiday week here in Europe. Still there was some very interesting articles out this week.
‼️News you can’t miss
Here’s one important scary/bad (🙀), good (😻), interesting (😼) and fossil (💩) news item.
🙀 Climate change is driving an increase in hurricanes and their impact
😻 New research suggests micro-algae might be used to produce hydrogen.
😼 Now is not the time to give into climate fatalism
💩 Meet the Global Climate Coalition the band of fossils et. al who have derailed climate action since 1980s.
This week’s highlights
[#dowhatyoucan] — A great article by Susan Joy Hassol and Michael Mann in Time Magazine about how we mustn’t give in to the extreme of doomism. As you’ve probably seen in this newsletter as well following the latest IPCC report there was a lot of articles along the lines of “it’s now or never”. In this article though Michael and Susan argue that no it’s not not or never. We must stress the urgency in any way we can but we must also be clearly aware that the fight never stops. There’s no “never” here. Even if we fail to limit to 1.5C (which seems likely) there’s still 1.6C or 1.7C any increase in temperature is worht going for as it will leave fewer people and species dead.
[#1.5C] — According to a new analysis if you squint and assume the very best and most focussed political climate action will happen in the next 78 years it looks we could stand a chance to limit warming below 2C. However, that analysis with rose-tinted glasses on relies on the stated policies being implemented faster than what they’re currently planned as well as policies which developing countries have said will not be implemented unless they get more funding. So yeah.. You’ll be the judge. But at least the right policies to get below 2C seem to be on the table now.
[#trees] — About a year or so ago I had a meeting with a Silicon Valley investor type who was in town and wanted to talk to people working in climate here. We discussed carbon removal quite a bit but about 2 minutes into the conversation he said something like “natural solutions are bullshit”. After a few moments trying to convince him otherwise the meeting deteriorated from there. Here’s at least one startup who agrees with me that they’re not bullshit and in fact they can be improved. Living Carbon is trying to improve the way trees sequester carbon.
That’s it for this week folks!
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See you all next week 👋