Notes From All Over -- Part 7, July 11, 2019

I've talked about this before. This is why I can't take "global warming" seriously. If the world was really going to end in twelve years (or more accurately, if "we don't do something within the next twelve years ...") "we" would have put a stop to this (building more coal plants) a long time ago. It's not as if there are no alternatives to coal.

But here it is. The world has less than twelve years to act (Beto says ten), and "since 2000, the world has doubled its coal-fired capacity to around 2,000 gigawatts (GW) after explosive growth in China and India." [Perhaps China and India did not get the memo.]

But get this: a further 236GW is being built and 336GW is planned.

Algore alerted the global movers and shakers back in 1994 about CO2 and global warming. After he invented the internet. Since then, it appears, we've added more coal-energy than ever. It's hard to take global warming talk seriously when I see that.

Read more at carbonbrief.org (https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants) -- it's interactive.

Yes, that site is a "global warming" site and it is noted that use of coal is declining, and will continue to decline. However.

Due to a wave of retirements across the EU and the US in the past few years, 227GW of coal energy has been shut down. Electricity generated from coal has plateaued ("Pat, I would like to buy a vowel") since 2014. But still, with only twelve years to go (Beto, ten years), it seems "we" should have been acting more quickly. Whatever.

[By the way, if you really read the numbers and the timelines closely, things don't add up.]

The good news: these folks at carbonbrief.org say we have "a few decades": "All unabated coal must close within a few decades if warming is to be limited to less than 2C above pre-industrial temperatures.

Even better news: the folks at carbonbrief.org have not been watching the solar minimum science that NASA has been reporting recently.

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Speaking of Coal

I'm roasting my third beer-can chicken of the season right now. Wow, what a great aroma.

I use charcoal. I used to be really, really conscious of getting my hands dirty. Not any more. About a year ago I decided to really "play" in the coal. Get my hands really, really dirty. Enjoy the visceral feel of old briquets. 

It was a lifestyle choice.

And then this. Earlier I wrote that I just bought a new book: Finding Fire. There are incredibly great pictures of really, black, coal-covered hands, holding charred wood, cold embers, old briquets. Earthy. Wonderful.

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Writing to 100