Planet3.0 Blogs

The talking point in social media at the moment (in my bubble, at least) seems to be the letter on justice and open debate, signed by 150 luminaries. It’s not been universally well-received. There was some quite measured comments in…

If we melt Greenland, there’s always Mars. AFP: An animation based on images taken by the ESA’s Mars Express showcases the 82-kilometre-wide Korolev Crater on Mars. Located in the northern lowlands of the Red Planet, south of the large Olympia…

Sweden’s experiment isn’t going very well. It is simplistic to portray government actions such as quarantines as the cause of economic damage. The real culprit is the virus itself.…

Houston Chronicle is a good keyhole to peer into the heart of America’s energy industry. Houston Chronicle: BIG SPRING, Texas — Driving through the Permian Basin while on vacation, I couldn’t help but notice an industrial landscape that presages the…

Above, Jessica Woycehoski is a resource planner for CMS Energy, Michigan’s largest utility and the 10th largest in the US. Problems for natural gas were becoming evident even 2 years ago when I interviewed her. Natural Gas in the age…

Nitrous Oxide – more powerful than methane. Nature Reviews: Soils are sources of the potent greenhouse gas nitrous oxide (N2O) globally, but emissions from permafrost-affected soils have been considered negligible owing to nitrogen (N) limitation. Recent measurements of N2O emissions…

Not only is testing complicated by sampling issues (we’re not testing randomly), it’s complicated by medical issues too.…

I’ve had some inquiries about a new book being pushed by purported “Environmentalist” Michael Shellenberger, which he has promoted with an online piece titled “On Behalf of Environmentalists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare”. In the puff piece on Forbes…

And gas.. The Covid Crisis has become a critical moment for the oil and gas industry, as many observers, including moi, feel like we may have accelerated peak oil consumption, and created significant new barriers for the natural gas industry.…

I’ve received some bullshit comments over the years, but every now and then one just goes that extra bullshit mile: Yeah, holding NY up as an example doesn’t make sense. Stockholm has better numbers than NYC, and Stockholm did (almost)…

Italy is not a windy country and it relies mainly on the sun for its renewable energy. Nevertheless, some spots of the Appennini mountains are swept by enough wind to make it possible to build wind plants. In the picture,…

Above, Varshini Prakash, the executive director of the Sunrise Movement, recaps her participation in the Joe Biden Climate Coalition over recent months. She is “cautiously optimistic”. New York Times: In recent weeks, supporters of Mr. Biden and of Senator Bernie…

Above, Representative Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) pursues a breathtakingly moronic line of questioning around climate science, with former Secretary of State John Kerry. Today, Rep. Massie still pursuing an anti-science agenda, this time with Corona virus. The anti-science movement is by…

Inside Climate News: House Democrats unveiled a sweeping plan for climate action Tuesday that embraces much of the ambition of the Green New Deal, while avoiding the use of the name and steering clear of calls for abrupt bans on…

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Dylan, Petty, Harrison, Clapton, Young, McGuinn. Did I miss anyone?…

This post is partly motivated by something I think I either heard Michael Shellenberger say, or write, but I can’t find it anymore. I have tried reading some of the articles again, and listening to some of the podcasts again,…

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We can defeat the COVID-19 epidemic. We’ve already been shown how. New York state was hard hit by COVID-19, and hit early by U.S. standards. Because of the incompetent federal response, nobody in the U.S. was properly prepared. Responding quickly,…

  Ugo Bardi experiments with new predictive methods. This post was inspired mainly by the shock I had with the various failed attempts to predict the outcome of the Covid-19 epidemic. It was truly a sobering experience: bad predictions, clueless…

Vote. Climate Change News: Major nations including the United States and Russia are throwing a lifeline to fossil fuel companies during the coronavirus crisis, rather than seizing a historic chance to shift to cleaner energies, a study by 14 research…

Mentions importance of CO2 reduction goals globally.…

What happens when you encourage and enable a war on science and fact over 30 years.…

The Dangerous ones from Kasey Anderson. Lyrics: let the television burn, baby, there’s a riot in the streetthey said the wolf was at the front door but he was lying at their feetwe felt a change, a change, but ain’t…

Figure 1. Regionalized mean annual mass balance of WGMS reference glaciers 1980-2018, with 2019 being a mean of reference glaciers. Glaciers have been studied as sensitive indicators of climate for more than a century and are now experiencing a historically…

Fraunhofer Institute: The Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE just presented the data on the net electricity generation for the public power supply for the first half of 2020, which is based on data available on the Energy Charts…

One of the first states hit by COVID-19 (some would say, the first) was Washington. It, along with California and New York, formed the epicenter, the focus of the initial invasion of the deadly virus. But Washington state did a…

I’ve received some comments on the blog which went straight to the trash bin. For instance: someone wrote to tell me that the only reason “red states” (with republican governors) looked so bad is that Massachusetts had a republican governor,…

I guess the current entertainment in the climate world relates to Michael Shellenberger’s new book, Apocolypse Never, which is due to come out next month and is already doing well on Amazon. In a somewhat amusing twist, Michael wrote a…

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