As reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, the city of Petaluma will ban the construction, expansion, rebuilding, and relocating of gas stations after a unanimous vote by the City Council. It does so in hopes of forcibly speeding up the transition to electric cars with the goal of reaching “carbon neutrality,” net-zero carbon emissions, by 2030.
Trudeau said Canada will reduce emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — a target much lower than the one first pitched by the former Conservative government and agreed to by former environment minister Catherine McKenna at the Paris climate talks in 2015.
France is set to ban short domestic flights in favor of train services, after lawmakers approved a plan that will see several air routes discontinued to reduce emissions. MPs voted late on Saturday to some suspend some flights by domestic airlines that can be made by train in less than two-and-a-half hours, as part of a wider climate bill. If the bill passes through France’s upper house, the Senate, France will join a number of European countries seeking to move away from short flights.
New Zealand will force banks to reveal the impact their investments have on climate change under world-first legislation intended to make the financial sector’s environmental record transparent, officials said.
At an environmental forum, Julian Simon once asked: “How many people here believe that the earth is increasingly polluted and that our natural resources are being exhausted?”
After a roomful of hands shot up, Simon then asked: “Is there any evidence that could dissuade you?” Encountering silence, he followed up: “Is there any evidence I could give you—anything at all—that would lead you to reconsider these assumptions?”
After more silence, Simon answered: “Well, excuse me. I’m not dressed for church.”
SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China generated 53% of the world’s total coal-fired power in 2020, nine percentage points more that five years earlier, despite climate pledges and the building of hundreds of renewable energy plants, a global data study showed on Monday.
… China’s coal-fired generation rose by 1.7% or 77 terawatt-hours, enough to bring its share of global coal power to 53%, up from 44% in 2015, the report showed.
China has promised to reduce its dependence on coal and bring emissions of climate-warming greenhouse gas to a peak before 2030 and become “carbon neutral” by 2060.
China promised? Only idiots like Justin or Biden could believe that crap.
h/t MW
When Joe Biden started his presidency with the slogan “diplomacy is back!” some wondered what that meant in terms of a coherent foreign policy. Diplomacy, as every sixth-grader knows, is one of the many means needed to implement a policy. On its own, it is either an academic conceit or another name for charade. In the past week or so we have observed diplomacy, as practiced by the new administration, both as a conceit and a charade.
As a conceit, it appeared in the headline-catching slogan “America is back in the Paris Climate Accord” launched by Washington. Now, however, we know that the “return” is so full of “ifs and buts” that even the French, initially applauding loudly, are beginning to wonder whether they have been sold a bill of goods. Another example was furnished by the tedious scrimmage over the “nuclear deal” with the mullahs in Tehran.
It might seem so obvious a point that one might overlook it when evaluating what we already know about the climate change plan the Conservatives will campaign on in the next general election but here it is anyway: Conservatives must win votes from people who did not vote for them in 2019 or in 2015.
And poll after poll after poll has indicated that one of the primary reasons voters chose another party over the Conservatives was climate change. Non-Conservative voters do not believe Conservatives are serious about climate change or, only slightly less worse, that the party’s plans to do anything about it were or are credible.
Conservative leader Erin O’Toole says the Conservative Party of Canada is not a party of climate change deniers, telling members the debate is over. True North’s Andrew Lawton points out that party leaders don’t get to direct the base, as Conservative convention delegates showed O’Toole.
Tar & feathers.
A university has come under fire for plans to erect a life-size sculpture of Greta Thunberg – with residents saying she has nothing to do with the city.
The £24,000 bronze design sculpture of the environmental campaigner – named ‘Make a Difference’ – was commissioned by Winchester University as an ‘inspiration for all students’.
But many locals have questioned the decision, with some saying a tribute to Kev, the local Big Issue seller, would have been more popular.
It is believed to be the first life-sized depiction of the 18-year-old Swedish activist who gained international attention after starting a school climate strike in 2018.
And now, after a year of work, the statue is ready to be unveiled at the university on March 30.
The first test of a project backed to spray millions of tonnes of chalk into the stratosphere, in an attempt to ‘dim the sun’ and cool the Earth, could happen in June.
Harvard University experts will test the system by sending a large balloon 12 miles above the Swedish town of Kiruna and have it drop 2kg of chalk dust into the stratosphere.
The aim of the estimated $3 million mission, backed by billionaire Bill Gates, is to have the chalk deflect a portion of the sun’s radiation, stop it from hitting the surface, and cool the planet.
Why can’t they just fudge the temperature records down instead of up?
Bill Gates wants to do his part to try to reduce impact of a warming planet. He just published a book about climate change. It turns out that he’s also been changing parts of his life to cut back on carbon emissions.
“There’s a lot of folks who think that, due to climate change and due to the globalization in general, it is inevitable that we’ll deal with more and more viruses like this,” Dr. Fauci told Meet the Press.
It was one of the smaller-scale actions young people around the world took on Friday to demand governments and companies do much better in the fight against climate change, with Canada’s biggest city still mostly locked down by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is about to start making one of the world’s largest and most polluting vehicle fleets a whole lot cleaner. That is, unless environmental zealots derail things.
On Monday, March 8, House Democrats introduced a measure that would provide USPS with $6 billion to purchase a variety of electric vehicles over the next decade. Simply put, the funds are not necessary and should not be provided.
