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Deep in the Amazon Forest
Let us start with this sound and visual immersion into the Amazon Rainforest from Emergence Magazine (connect a good speaker or headphones):
After all, maybe the Amazon Rainforest is not the natural wilderness we think….
Is the Amazon rainforest human made?
Back to less – but also more – earthly realities…..
Chile Data Centres
Data centre resistance is growing worldwide – here is a great report from Rest Of World on protests against a huge expansion of water-guzzling data centres in Chile, one of the driest regions in the world
U.S tech giants are building dozens of data centers in Chile. Locals are fighting back
Peak fossil fuel? Hardly….
Two reports in the New York Times underline our deeply conflicted – and compromised - response to fossil fuels.
Firstly, an inapproriately upbeat report that global carbon emissions may already have peaked, largely as a result of the slow bursting of China’s construction industry bubble, which is reducing demand for steel and concrete.
The Right Kind of Tipping Point (paywall - see note below)
[free access to article here]
It ends on a triumphant note:
“This is the last gasp of the fossil fuel industry,” said Tzeporah Berman, founder of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, a movement that seeks to phase out coal, oil and gas. “They read the writing on the wall. They know that their days are limited. And they’re doing everything they can to make sure that they are the last barrel sold.”
That seems somewhat premature; as the report also details, this could easily be blip; aggregate carbon emissions have dropped many times before. And, as the report also notes, for a dying industry, the oil business is still posting a surprisingly large amount of record profits.
Furthermore, as the second NYTimes article shows, fossil fuel infrastructure is still very much in development, with Greece positioning itself as Europe’s prime importer for US natural gas.
Why Greece Is Betting Big on American Gas (paywall - see note below)
[free access to article here]
$1.5tn is currently committed to building new gas pipelines and terminals worldwide – whereas global investment in renewable energy last year was around $1.8tn.
The underlying trend is that however much renewable capacity is installed on the world’s grids, fossil fuels remain very much in demand, critical to geo-politics - and increasingly lucrative.
It’s getting bumpy up there
Could it be that recent occurrence of catastrophic turbulence is being caused by a warming atmosphere?
Airplane turbulence is getting worse. Scientists explain why.
Orcas assemble pt.2
Scientists claim they have “solved” the puzzle of why orcas are attacking boats near Gibralter. They’re just playing, apparently.
I’m not so sure.
New Atlas: Orcas are still smashing up boats – and we've finally worked out why
Still betting the farm on offsets
The carbon offset is the climate scam that refuses to die. No matter how many scandals beset the carbon offset “industry” (it makes absolutely nothing), new offset schemes continue to pop up promising to address the problems of offsets past. It’s been the same pattern for decades – because, obviously, offsets provide an invaluable service to influential carbon emitting companies who want to continue emitting carbon – and avoid regulation.
Here is one excellent long form report of a standard issue offset scandal, and a vivid portrait of the fraudster behind it:
The Atavist: Watch It Burn
The Guardian has a more general overview of offsets:
Market value of carbon offsets drops 61%, report finds
Troublingly, as this NY Times article shows, carbon offsets still have their admirers far beyond those industries:
How to Fix Carbon Offsets (paywall - see note below)
There are a smorgasbord of fundamental problems inherent to the concept of offsets, but let’s just stick with 2:
For a given amount of carbon emissions, a perfectly implemented offset (which doesn’t exist – see below) will by design only stop half of those emissions. But, if we assume climate science is roughly correct, we have to stop all carbon emissions. And this hypothetically perfect offset more or less locks in the remaining 50 per cent.
Offsets always rely on the tortuous concept of “additionality”, namely that the offset issuer can convincingly show that the specified amount of carbon emissions in the offset would have been emitted without the offset. In other words they have to prove a counterfactual – which is impossible. And it’s here that carbon offsets always fall down. How can you prove a forest wouldn’t have been planted ? Or a pig farm’s methane wouldn’t have been captured? Frequently it doesn’t even come to that; whatever activity was promised in the offset often never actually took place.
Offsets are a textbook example at systemic level of what psychologists often describe as “displacement activity”; all the things you do to avoid doing the things that you really have to do.
The only useful thing we can do with offsets is regulate them out of existence.
Is it all bad?
Well, yes……mostly – but here are some nice stories from Mongabay to keep us hanging on…..to something.
Walpole Island First Nation in Ontario and Michigan is building its own renewable energy:
Indigenous communities make clean energy drive work for, not against, them
Peru approves the creation of long-awaited marine protected area
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