[GWSG] Disruptions in progress; Irma's mess & our job list; the long view

[Tilley, Al]

Hurrican Irma left me off the internet (and tv) for the past week.  As I get back up to date, I want to call your attention to the hour's material in item one.  The other two items are ancillary.


1. Stanford U's Tony Seba describes in this one-hour video why we are not in an energy transition but in a technology disruption which is bringing the dominance of distributed solar and the disappearance of the privately owned internal combustion auto much sooner than you think.  https://climatecrocks.com/2017/09/16/the-weekend-wonk-tony-seba-on-disruptive-energy-technologies/ Now that you have watched the tape, you are probably lost in admiration, as am I, at the prospect of achieving global emissions reductions soon enough and at sufficient scale to escape climate catastrophe. We won't even have to persuade Rex Tillerson or a single senator or president of the need for action.



2.  Even if we achieve our emissions goals we have a great deal of heating baked into our climate system, and can look forward to more strong hurricanes and decades of sea level rise.  By Tuesday following Hurricane Irma, nine million gallons of pollution spills were reported to the State of FL, and the figure has grown since.  We must put effort into preserving livable surroundings in the new world we have produced by hardening our infrastructure and by cleaning up our brownfields and old gas stations before they submerge, for we will not be able to once they go under for good.   https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/15/in-irmas-wake-millions-of-gallons-of-sewage-and-wastewater-are-bubbling-up-across-florida/?nid&utm_term=.b35c648924c6



3.  Even informed and responsible accounts of the effects of fossil fuels tend to have a horizon of 2100. We are making alterations which will last thousands of years.  http://e360.yale.edu/features/taking-the-long-view-the-forever-legacy-of-climate-change  ?

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