Suspected Russian government hackers breached the computer networks of the US Defense Department. The Commerce Department. The Treasury Department. The State Department. Homeland Security. Even the part of the Energy Department that oversees America’s nuclear arsenal.
With just a few weeks left, 2020 is in a dead-heat tie for the hottest year on record. But whether it claims the top spot misses the point, climate scientists say. There is no shortage of disquieting statistics about what is happening to the Earth.
The hottest decade on record is coming to a close, with the last five years being the hottest since 1880. 2020 is just two-hundredths of a degree cooler than 2016, the hottest year ever recorded. The Earth is nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer now than it was in the 20th century, and greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are still rising.
The change was eight years in the making, but New York State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli’s decision to divest the state’s massive pension fund from fossil fuels over four years is an enormous victory for environmentalists, according to climate activists and author Bill McKibben.
“It’s a huge part of this global divestment effort that’s now at about $15 trillion,” McKibben told Capital Tonight. “Look, the Pope and the Queen of England have both divested in the course of this year but they don’t have as much money as the Comptroller of the State of the New York. It’s the largest pension fund that divested yet, breaking the record set three years ago by Scott Stringer who divested the City’s pension fund.”
The latest state pension fund valuation is at $226.4 billion.
I know that has been a big fight for a long time for a lot of people. I am also a member of the state pension system and I think it does send a strong message on what should be future investments of the fossil industry.
But I also understand the hesitance of the state to divest for wi many years. Indeed, my personal portfolio is a bit heavier on energy stocks compared to the market as whole, as I bought some years ago as a hedge against energy price driven inflation / recession.
I also think the energy industry is primed to be in the forefront of the renewable energy industry, just because energy companies own a lot of land and infrastructure like power lines and transformers. And it's not like we don't all use fossil energy - I like my big jacked up truck. Even if my future property is small and off grid, I'll still need diesel for my tractor and pick up truck, propane for cooking, and lots of products made using fossil fuels. Or the plastic wrapper the food comes in and goes up in smoke in the burn barrel. But cities need to go on a diet from all the massive fossil fuels they consume.
Climate change is real and effects us all, especially those who live close to the land. But it's also mainly an urban problem caused by high emissions or carbon from the cities. But it's a tough nut to crack. Much more difficult than power factor or even something like the ozone hole or water pollution.
The Arctic continued its unwavering shift toward a new climate in 2020, as the effects of near-record warming surged across the region, shrinking ice and snow cover and fueling extreme wildfires, scientists said Tuesday in an annual assessment of the region.
Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the University of Alaska and one of the editors of the assessment, said it “describes an Arctic region that continues along a path that is warmer, less frozen and biologically changed in ways that were scarcely imaginable even a generation ago.”
“Nearly everything in the Arctic, from ice and snow to human activity, is changing so quickly that there is no reason to think that in 30 years much of anything will be as it is today,” he said.
Some people have suggested a carbon tax to raise the cost the fossil fuels. These taxes are unpopular, especially among fossil fuel interests (miners, oil workers, farmers with mineral rights) who fear lost profits and less jobs when fewer people buy fossil fuels. That’s a totally reasonable concern — that’s the goal of a carbon tax.
But what if instead of taxing carbon — or on top of taxing carbon — we were to set a minimum sales price on the sale of fossil fuels. For example, gasoline might currently cost $2.65 a gallon. But under a minimum sales price, no retailer could legally sell gasoline for less then $5.00 a gallon. Motorists might grumble a lot when they go to fill up their car, but fossil fuel interests would be held harmless — those who fill up at the higher price, less frequently — end of depositing the same amount of money in the hands of fossil fuel industry.
Liberals like to beat up on the oil industry, for good reason. They along with the railroads, the coal companies, the automakers and other leading industries have actively been denying climate change for a long time. But at the same time, they do provide an essential service, and their industry’s buy in to any climate plan is essential if we want to move forward. Maybe the solution would be a hybrid approach: combine a carbon tax with a price floor to ensure fossil fuel producers are held harmless as people move away from the climate disrupting fuels.
That’s how many states regulate cigarettes — it’s not a criminal offense or illegal to smoke cigarettes outside of public office buildings. But instead, the price of cigarettes is kept high by levying a special tax on each pack of cigarettes, along with requiring the retailers sell them at a state-proscribed minimum price. This discourages smokers, especially young ones, while ensuring retailers and tobacco interests aren’t harmed by fewer people smoking.
I was thinking how silly it is of the electric utilities to not be promoting electric cars. Increasing demand for night time generation could be very profitable for the utilities and help smooth out there loads. It might even save many a coal fired and nuclear power plant, which are such big loosers with the low revenue during the night time.
But alas, most of the utility companies are more interested in doing the things the way they always have. Change is risky. But utilities have all the advantages when the grid becomes more renewable and more electrified. They have the high voltage wires, the transformers and the rural land that keeps the nuisances of generation of energy far away. Plus it’s not clear if electrifying more of America is actually that bad for them, especially the coal and nuclear operators.
But then again, it’s not always clear that business leaders are profit and power maximizers or if they are more concerned with incumbency and resisting change. Any time the world changes it can be pretty risky especially if you are an industry leader.