[GWSG] Solar panels up; air drier; thinning the herds; night soil; wagging the WAIS; dust shield dropping

[Tilley, Al]

 1. JA Solar, China’s fourth-largest solar panel manufacturer, is opening a factory in the US. Its annual production capacity will be 2 gigawatts. The current US total capacity is 4.5 gigawatts. JA’s plant will combine with others in the works to more than double that.    https://electrek.co/2023/01/13/chinese-solar-firm-to-open-a-us-factory-a-manufacturing-win-for-biden/



2. Overall, the atmosphere is becoming hotter and drier. Droughts deepen more readily; ground and surface water evaporates more quickly, and fires build more fiercely. Heat waves are increasing. We can ease the situation in a few decades by burning much less coal, oil, and gas.    https://phys.org/news/2023-01-alarming-entire-global.html



3. The Netherlands, forced by EU regulations on nitrogen, is undertaking to reduce its livestock herds. The US leads the world in beef, cow’s milk, and chicken production, and is second in pork. The climate requires that we engineer a steep decline in animal agriculture; we face complex difficulties in accomplishing that. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/16/netherlands-european-union-regulations-livestock



4. Human urine and feces can be processed into safe and effective fertilizers, replacing those made from fossil methane. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-toilets-yield-excellent-alternatives-widespread.html



5. New research in the West Antarctic indicates that the pace of melting, and thus of sea level rise, can be influenced by changes in our greenhouse gas emissions. The usual emphasis in discussions of the region recently has been on it passing a tipping point, beyond which its ice sheets are committed to dissolution. The new research finds a large role to be played by our climate action efforts. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-runaway-west-antarctic-ice-retreat.html



6. Dust in the atmosphere keeps us about 8% cooler than we would be without it. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution about 1850 airborne dust has increased 55%, but appears to have been decreasing since the 1980s. Hidden heat may begin to show up. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/17/atmospheric-dust-cooling-climate-change

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