[GWSG] No Miracles; less lithium; Amazon tipping?; Himalayas tipped?; Ohio's GOP racketeers; climate games

[Tilley, Al]

1. Stanford’s Mark Jacobson has for years and in a couple of detailed studies maintained that existing renewables and energy storage technologies are almost wholly adequate to the energy transition. In No Miracles Needed: How Today’s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air (Cambridge UP) he makes his case, dismissing nuclear energy, biofuels, and carbon capture and storage as wastes of time and money if not dangerous distractions. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/23/no-miracles-needed-prof-mark-jacobson-on-how-wind-sun-and-water-can-power-the-world

2. I trust that Jacobson would applaud the development of EV batteries which will spare us dirty lithium mines. The depredations of mining are being used now as an argument against the energy transition, while the depredations of the climate crisis are ignored by the arguers. I smell gas and oil. Still, we could do better than the SUVs and military vehicles we use for our daily drives. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/24/us-electric-vehicles-lithium-consequences-research
I wish the linked article would at least refer to the cleaner, more efficient, lighter, safer, and cheaper EV batteries now in development.

3. Human activity and drought may now have degraded more than a third of the Amazonian rain forest, supporting fears that the region is inevitably becoming a savannah, with grave consequences for the global climate. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/26/human-activity-and-drought-degrading-more-than-a-third-of-amazon-rainforest

4. The tipping from rain forest to savannah in the Amazon is linked to a major water supply tipping in the Himalayas. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-climate-amazon-tibet-linked-scientists.html

5. Ohio’s First Energy is at the heart of a racketeering scandal involving bribery and legislation designed to stifle development of renewable energy and provide bailouts for the coal and nuclear industries. Billions of dollars and the state Republican leadership are featured in the trial. “We actually don’t have legitimate representative democracy in Ohio.” (David DeWitt, taped Interview)   https://climatecrocks.com/2023/01/27/coal-fossil-fuels-at-heart-of-ohio-racketeering-corruption/

6. This spring Daybreak will join the board games leading us toward insights into the climate crisis. Games can instruct, and they can also let us imagine the outcomes of events now in process, as with the games used by the military for decades to explore the results of strategic choices. https://nexusmedianews.com/climate-board-games/

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