Dilip Simeon's blog

The  Ember energy analysis shop,  which prioritizes ending the use of coal to combat the climate emergency, has issued a  new report  on where we stand with green energy. Among their important findings is that all low-carbon sources of energy were responsible for 38% of the world’s electricity last year, for the first time outstripping coal (36%). This is excellent news, but it isn’t enough. Coal is a planet-killer and if we don’t end its use almost immediately we will roar past the safe limits of climate change, risking climate chaos and serial disasters. Obviously, regarding the 38%, these renewables include  hydroelectricity , which has been around for some time and which accounts for almost half (45%) of renewable energy generation. Hydroelectric power cannot meet the challenge of the climate emergency and anyway wind and solar are now cheaper.  Ember is not shy about branding certain regions as laggards. They write, “Only 1% of global solar generatio...

British universities have accepted almost £90m in funding from major oil companies since 2017, openDemocracy can reveal. Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London have been criticised for taking the most, with one MP branding the relationship between oil giants and universities “scandalous.” Imperial College London has accepted more than £54m, including £39m from Shell – with which it  boasts  of having a “long-standing and fruitful partnership”. The college has refused to explain exactly what the money was used for, simply saying that it funded research into “energy transition, lowering carbon emissions in extraction and in carbon mitigation measures" Cambridge University also received more than £14m from oil giants, while Oxford University got almost £8m. These include large donations to Oxford’s Said Business School Centre for Corporate Reputation. In total, 36 universities said they have received funding from eight oil giants, with others refusing to disclose whether t...

Balsa wood is used in Europe, and also more intensively in China, as a  component in the construction of the blades of wind turbines.  Already-installed wind turbines, with blades that stretch to 80 metres, can cover an area of approximately 21,000 square metres, which is equivalent to about three football pitches. More recent wind turbine designs can incorporate blades that are up to 100-metres long that consume about 150 cubic metres of balsa wood each – equivalent to several tonnes – according to  calculations attributed  to the  National Renewable Energy Laboratory . In 2018, international demand for balsa wood increased significantly. The tropical wood is flexible and yet hard, while also being both light and resilient. Ecuador, which is the main exporter of balsa,  with about 75% of the global market , is home to several large exporters, such as  Plantabal S.A.  in Guayaquil, which dedicates up to 10,000 hectares to growing the wood for ex...

Since the 1980s, fossil fuel firms have run ads touting climate denial messages – many of which they’d now like us to forget. Here’s our visual guide. Why is meaningful action to avert the climate crisis proving so difficult? It is, at least in part, because of ads. The fossil fuel industry has perpetrated a multi-decade, multibillion dollar disinformation, propaganda and lobbying campaign to delay climate action by confusing the public and policymakers about the climate crisis and its solutions.  This has involved a remarkable array of advertisements – with headlines ranging from “Lies they tell our children” to “Oil pumps life” – seeking to convince the public that the climate crisis is not real, not human-made, not serious and not solvable. The campaign continues to this day. As recently as last month, six big oil CEOs were summoned to US Congress to answer for the industry’s history of discrediting climate science – yet they lied under oath about it. In other words, the fossil ...

The United States is a nation of militantly ignorant people, arrogant in their beliefs, unable to change their minds and unwilling to try. We lack education. And the lack of education in this country is such a problem that national security adviser Jake Sullivan described it this week as a critical issue for our national security. "I do consider it a national security problem," he told me during a White House briefing on Tuesday. "In fact, it's Dr. [Jill] Biden who has repeatedly said — and the president frequently quotes her — that any country that out-educates the United States will outcompete the United States, and that is a fundamental national security issue." Why is Biden failing? His tightly controlled relationship to the media might be worse than Trump's NPR reported Tuesday that, in part because of COVID-19, we have  500,000 fewer students  enrolled in colleges this year. Does anyone really think we can compete in the modern workplace with just ...

By 2030, Shell must cut its CO2 emissions by 45% compared to 2019 levels, the civil court ruled. The Shell group is responsible for its own CO2 emissions and those of its suppliers, the verdict said. It is the first time a company has been legally obliged to align its policies with the Paris climate accords, says Friends of the Earth (FoE). The environmental group brought the case to court in 2019, alongside six other bodies and more than 17,000 Dutch citizens. Though the decision only applies in the Netherlands, it could have wider effects elsewhere. BBC Netherlands correspondent  Anna Holligan tweeted that it was a "precedent-setting judgement" . A Shell spokesperson said they "fully expect to appeal today's disappointing court decision" and added that they are stepping up efforts to cut emissions. "Urgent action is needed on climate change, which is why we have accelerated our efforts to become a net-zero emissions energy company by 2050," the spo...

In the summer of 1988, the United States experienced the worst heat waves and droughts since the Dust Bowl. Ominous images of burning forests, withering fields and sweltering cities filled the American press and elicited nervous suspicion: was this the work of the so-called  greenhouse effect ? Had the danger of which some scientists warned already arrived? It was amid this tense national atmosphere climatologist James Hansen intervened with his testimony to the Senate, in which he forthrightly asserted that "we can ascribe with a high degree of confidence a cause and effect relationship between the greenhouse effect and observed warming." The suspicions were sound: "It is already happening now." Describing the extreme summer as a taste of things to come, the report in the New York Times also noted that the testifying scientists "said that planning must begin now for a sharp reduction in the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels that release carbon diox...

I grew up and learned about caring for nature thanks to a pilot programme (Fatima Experimental Center) for the conservation of Amazonian fauna run by the Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Pastaza (OPIP). Today,  Pastaza Kikin Kichwa Runakuna  (Pakkiru – the current name for OPIP, my home organisation) consists of more than 180 grassroots communities and 13 associations, communes and villages within Ecuador’s Pastaza province. In 1992, the historic Allpamanda, Kakwsaymanda, Jatarishun march led by OPIP reached Quito, Ecuador’s capital, and obtained 1.3 million hectares of tropical forest for the Kichwa, Zápara and Shiwia nationalities. This included not only the mountain ranges of Abitahua and Llangantes, but also the great plains of the lowland jungles, which have been historically inhabited by Kichwa men and women https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/democraciaabierta/oil-exploitation-threatening-ecuadorian-rainforest-and-the-planet/

Global carbon dioxide emissions are set to surge dangerously this year as the global economy undergoes a huge recovery.  In a new report, the International Energy Agency estimates that carbon emissions from energy use are on track to spike by 1.5 billion tonnes in 2021, as heavy coal consumption in Asia, and in China in particular, outweighs rapid growth in renewable sources. That would be the second largest annual increase in energy-related emissions in history. Welcome that kind of activism: US climate envoy John Kerry on Disha Ravi "This is a dire warning that the economic recovery from the Covid crisis is currently anything but sustainable for our climate," Executive Director Fatih Birol said in a statement. "Unless governments around the world move rapidly to start cutting emissions, we are likely to face an even worse situation in 2022."... https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/20/business/iea-carbon-emissions-report/index.html Aseem Shrivastava: An Age gone blind /...

In a year, bitcoin uses around the same about of electricity as the entire country of Norway. The digital currency is one that allows people to bypass banks and traditional payment methods. It is the most prominent among thousands of so-called  cryptocurrencies  and has been repeatedly reaching new records - but is it sustainable? The Guardian's UK technology editor Alex Hern examines how exactly bitcoin uses electricity and if the environmental cost is too high https://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2021/feb/25/why-bitcoin-is-so-bad-for-the-planet-video-explainer What is bitcoin and why are so many people looking to buy it? Cryptocurrencies rise in popularity in world's conflict zones    Analysis by TradingView, one of the top 100 most-visited websites in the world, found that countries that rank at the bottom of the  Human Freedom Index , or that are politically turbulent for other reasons, appear in the top 10 countries for online digital currency s...

It’s not just the value of bitcoin that has  soared  in the last year – so has the huge amount of energy it consumes. The cryptocurrency’s value has dipped recently after passing a high of $50,000 but the energy used to create it has continued to soar during its epic rise, climbing to the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Argentina, according to  Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index , a tool from researchers at Cambridge University that measures the currency’s energy use. Recent interest from major Wall Street institutions like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs probably culminated in the currency’s rise in value and an endorsement by Tesla’s Elon Musk helped drive its recent high as investors bet the cryptocurrency will become more widely embraced in the near future…. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/feb/27/bitcoin-mining-electricity-use-environmental-impact Michael Roberts: The top 1% own 45% of all global personal wealth; the bottom 50% own l...

The Energy Charter Treaty allows fossil fuel companies to sue governments for taking action on climate change. It must be stopped before it’s too late.   On 4 February the German energy giant RWE announced it was  suing the government of the Netherlands . The crime? Proposing to phase out coal from the country’s electricity mix. The company, which is Europe’s biggest emitter of carbon, is demanding €1.4bn in ‘compensation’ from the country for loss of potential earnings, because the  Dutch government has banned the burning of coal  for electricity from 2030. If this sounds unreasonable, then you might be surprised to learn that this kind of legal action is perfectly normal – and likely to become far more commonplace in the coming years. RWE is suing under the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT), a little-known international agreement signed without much public debate in 1994. The treaty binds more than 50 countries, and allows foreign investors in the energy sector to...

Jill Morrison has seen how the bust of oil and gas production can permanently scar a landscape. Near her land in north-east Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, where drilling started in 1889, more than 2,000 abandoned wells are seeping brine into the groundwater and leaking potent greenhouse gasses. The problem is getting worse. As the oil and gas industry contracts owing to the pandemic, low prices and the rise of renewables, more than 50 major companies have gone bankrupt in the last year. Joe Biden’s recent order to pause drilling on federal land could drive that number higher. Morrison, a rancher and the head of the Powder River Basin resource council, said the crash was exacerbating the abandonment issue…. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/feb/25/us-abandoned-oil-wells-leak-methane-climate-crisis John Sentamu - It’s time to act against the oil companies causing death and destruction Matt Sheehan - Silent documentary on China's unspooling environmental disasters Toby W...

NB : Contemporary conservative thought has a tendency to equate all social control, or even the hint of such control, as 'communism'. Hence the antipathy toward activists such as Greta Thunberg, who simply asked for urgent measures to control damage to the environment. Note this paragraph from the article below: " The fight against climate change in Texas has been hampered by Republicans who appear ever more eager to fight against climate change legislation, even in the face of shifting public opinion and overwhelming scientific consensus. Caperton, a moderate Democrat, said that he became a pariah for introducing legislation in the 1980s to commission a study on wind energy. "It was just a study, but I was basically seen as a commie for doing that," he said. "  What does this mean? Why are thoughtless cliches like "government has no business being in business" treated as religious mantras? Governments are obliged to regulate economic activity in t...