Loving communists

 By BabylonBros (Mark Espinoza)

Another big jump in bond yields

 Another big jump in US bond yields overnight (Ozzie time).    The sell-off continues.

10-years back to 2002 levels, 30-years to 2004 (lower chart)

Very not good.

US bond sell-off intensifies

Bonds had a brief rally (i.e., yields fell) when the Fed raised the fed funds rate (the Central Bank discount rate).  The fear in the markets had been that the Fed was going to become Trump's creature and go soft on inflation.  The rise in the fed funds rate reduced that fear, and long-dated bond yields fell.  That lasted just 2 days, and yields have now moved to new highs.  Why?  The same reasons as before.  In particular, it's clear that the Iran war is not over, inflation is higher than targets, and recent data suggest that world economies are strengthening, meaning that there will be further rises in C.B. discount rates.  

Tightening credit tends to cause economic slowdowns.  And right now, the US economy is propped up by spending on AI, which is funded by venture capital and private credit, both of which rely on loose general credit markets.   This developing credit crunch is not good for shares or the economy.  Take care out there, people.

Access to the president

 By Bill  Bramhall

How robots will actually kill us

 From Smooth Dunk

Fear + ignorance = hate

 I don't know who drew this.  If you do, drop me a line on my Mastodon or Bluesky accounts.

(ReformUK is a far-right UK party, which Elon Musk enthusiastically supports)

Bromance

By Michael de Adder 

Should we rely on negative-emissions technologies?

 Short answer: no.

From Dr Aaron Thierry

"The Integrated Assessment Models informing policy-makers assume the large-scale use of negative-emission technologies. If we rely on these and they are not deployed or are unsuccessful at removing CO2 from the atmosphere at the levels assumed, society will be locked into a high-temperature pathway"

(From UNEP)

Look how large negative emissions have to be to achieve net-zero by 2070 (never mind 2050!) on current pathways  — almost as large as positive emissions in 1980.  We should not rely on negative emissions to stop the climate catastrophe, because we almost certainly won't be able to achieve them.  To save ourselves, we must cut actual emissions.   Now.  Forget pie-in-the-sky schemes to offset emissions and start working on replacing fossil fuels in our economy.

Heart Aerospace's first flight

 I've been following Heart Aerospace's electric plane since 2021.   It made its first flight in August, a flight which lasted 30 minutes and cost just $5 for "fuel" (electricity).  Most ES-30s will be hybrid, though, because current battery energy density isn't high enough for ranges longer than 150 miles (250 km).  Also, 1 in 1000 flights in the US get diverted to an airport 100 miles away.   Having two hybrid engines will allow the ES-30 to get ranges up to 500 miles and provide backup if a diversion is necessary.

Regional air travel is the most expensive air travel per kilometre.  So Heart Aerospace isn't just about reducing emissions and noise, it's also about filling a gap in regional and short-range passenger travel that has been abandoned by airlines because it became too expensive.

If it goes into service, the first flights won't be until 2031, because it takes years to get certification.  

Remember, the first really successful electric car was the hybrid Toyota Prius.   It took a decade before fully electric cars were available, and another decade before they became mass market. 

The first video shows an overview of the first flight, the second is an interview with the founder of Heart Aerospace, Anders Forslund. 

Last pillar

By Michael de Adder 

I'm more worried about shareholder value

I can't decipher the signature of the artist.  If you know, let me know so I can give proper attribution.

 

How about never?

 By Bob Mankoff

Godzilla El Niño

 From the Guardian

The “jaw-dropping” El Niño currently heating up the planet has burst through the highest temperature ever recorded for the phenomenon, several months before its expected peak.

The latest data shows the temperature rise at the heart of El Niño in the Pacific Ocean has now reached 3.05C. That is higher than the 3.02C set in late November 2015, the previous high set in the 150 years of modern records. This temperature is measured against the average of 1991-2020.

The preferred measure of most meteorologists uses a 30-year rolling average as a reference and so takes account of human-caused global heating. This metric, called ONI (Nino3.4), is on the brink of breaking the record, just one-hundredth of a degree below the 2015 record. Both metrics are underpinned by data from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

The most recent forecasts predict a peak of 4.0C in November and December, according to the average of 14 different models assessed by climate scientist Zeke Hausfather. That is a level so far above previous events that Hausfather called it “mind-blowing”, while others have described it as “Godzilla-level”. Any temperature rise above 0.5C is deemed an El Niño; above 2C is officially called a “very strong” El Niño – often referred to as a “super” El Niño.

The current El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere in which temperatures are already rising rapidly due to human-caused global heating. This double whammy means 2027 is expected to “blow apart” previous records and become the hottest year ever recorded.

The climate crisis, caused by pollution from fossil fuels, is already supercharging extreme weather and killing people. The El Niño will ratchet up the impacts even further, and has already begun to affect regions across the planet as weather patterns are altered.

“Very strong El Niño events like those in 1997/1998 and 2015/2016 were associated with hundreds of billions of dollars in damages globally – this event is leaving those past ones in the dust,” said Hausfather, whose analysis is published by Carbon Brief.

Prof Friederike Otto, at Imperial College London, said: “This event is a huge redistribution of energy in the climate system and is dangerous because it is unfolding on top of a much warmer, human-influenced climate system.

“So, in many places around the world we will see never-before-experienced heat extremes, with all their consequences on health, food security and water stress,” she said. “El Niño comes and goes, but as long as we continue to burn fossil fuels it occurs on an increasingly hotter baseline, making it much more difficult for communities to deal with the consequences.”

 

Hot and dry conditions in Indonesia have already spurred record wildfires and fatal levels of air pollution, while India has seen vital monsoon rains curtailed. Drought conditions in Central America and the Caribbean are causing crop losses and a slowdown of trade due to low water levels in the Panama canal. The World Food Programme said in August the impacts of El Niño were likely to push about 50 million people into acute hunger and drive prices up.

El Niño years also see more intense rains and flooding in some regions, with Peru and Chile already suffering, and access to Machu Picchu is disrupted. The Horn of Africa is also very vulnerable to increased downpours, while the southern US is expected to experience fierce rains in the winter.

The southern hemisphere summer is predicted to be hotter and drier as a result of the huge El Niño, meaning greater wildfire risk and droughts in Australia and southern Africa. Typhoons in the Pacific are expected to be more intense, but Atlantic hurricanes are suppressed by El Niño and, unusually, none has yet occurred this year.

While the usual impacts of El Niño are well known, scientists are concerned that the multiplying effect of the climate crisis could shift these patterns. This would make it harder for countries and communities to prepare. The UN World Meteorological Organization said it has launched the biggest mobilisation in its 50-year history to support national weather services to deliver “life-saving” forecasts.

The UN secretary-general António Guterres said earlier in September: “El Niño is being supersized before our eyes. The science leaves no room for doubt: the planet is in uncharted waters and the world is in the danger zone of extreme weather. The race now is between rising risks and our commitment to take climate action and protect people.”

In the Guardian on Tuesday meanwhile, Prof Bill McGuire said: “What is happening in the equatorial Pacific is jaw-dropping and could well mark one of the biggest global weather upheavals in a millennium.

“It will spawn a string of weather catastrophes around our world.”

He said strong El Niños can have a devastating effect on the global economy: “While the great recession of 2008 resulted in global GDP reducing by around $2tn, the 1997–98 super El Niño resulted in losses of $5.7tn.” That El Niño has already been surpassed by the current one.

Recent research shows global heating is now intensifying El Niño cycles, which then in turn intensify the impacts of the climate crisis. Data from analysis of corals, tree rings and historical documents suggest no El Niño has reached this level in the last millennium, added Hausfather.

“All effects from El Niño are magnified by global climate change,” said Prof Kevin Trenberth, at the National Center of Atmospheric Research in the US. “The northern summer of excess heat and wildfires in Europe, North America and Asia are but a sample of what is to come.”

We need to treat the climate catastrophe as a war.  One we are losing badly.   Force emission reductions now.  We know what to do.  Yet we dither and phaff, and do nothing.

Things are getting very ugly

 

Source: Off Target, from the UN Environment Programme
Note:  I believe that the UN is using the convention that methane is 20 times as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide over 100 years.  The better way to count methane, I think, is its effect over 20 years, when it is 80 times as potent a green house gas as CO2.  This would significantly increase the percentage of emissions from agriculture above the ~20% shown in this table.

Next year, this humungous El Niño could drive temperatures to 1.7 or 1.8 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.  This is, of course, catastrophic.  Things will get very ugly, unless we redouble our efforts to slash emissions.  

What can we do?

First, what can governments do?

✔️ Set a renewable energy target.  The percentage of renewables+nuclear in electricity generation needs to rise by 6-8% a year, or more, if we are to eliminate electricity's emissions before it is too late.

Emissions from electricity generation are just under 30% of total global emissions.  We may not yet be able to go above 90 or 95% renewables in the grid, because we don't have long-term storage to offset periods of dunkelflaute, but we can certainly aim for 90%, and reconsider what we need to do next when we get there. 

How would this work?  Each utility would be required to reach the levels set in the RET each year.  Those which exceeded this target would get credits, those which didn't would have to buy credits, either from their more successful peers, or from the government.   This would encourage utilities to replace coal and gas with wind/solar/batteries/nuclear/hydro. I include nuclear, but in truth, it can't be built fast enough.  But if there is already nuclear available, it shouldn't be closed down. 

If we aim for a maximum of 10% fossil fuels in electricity generation within 10 years, we will have cut emissions by 27%.  And, remember, in principle, every use of energy can be electrified.  So removing fossil fuels from electricity generation is key.

✔️ Every country should introduce a carbon tax.  It doesn't have to be swingeing to start out with, but it should rise every year, and the pathway should be clear to everybody.  To prevent emission leakage — you tax your industries while others don't tax theirs — you must also tax imports from countries which do not have an R.E.T. or a price on carbon.  (See my posts on a carbon border tax)

✔️ We need to accelerate the replacement of petrol/diesel vehicles (ICEVs) with EVs.  15% of emissions come from transport.  Because even when we reach 100% of sales being EVs, it will take 10-20 years for all ICEVs on the roads to be replaced.  This is too long.  Most countries are nowhere near 100% EV sales, even though this percentage has risen sharply over the last 9 months.   To accelerate this process, we could, for example, ban the import of new and second-hand ICEVs, or slap 100% taxes on them.  By taxing new petrol cars and subsidising EVs, we would drive a wedge between the up-front costs of EVs and ICEVs.  Ethiopia has already done this.  This policy should apply to two and three-wheeled vehicles, too.  Countries which do this deserve reduced carbon border taxes.  And we should press on with bi-mode and battery trains and electric planes.

✔️ We need to replace oil- or gas-based household and industrial heating with heat pumps.  They're four times as efficient as gas, oil, or electric heaters, and so are cheaper to run, but they have higher up-front costs.  They will require government subsidy to start the revolution rolling.  

All of these combined will cut emissions by 50 or more.  If we also switch to low-emission steel and cement, the emissions cuts could reach 65%.

Second, what can you do?

✔️ The steps above will leave mostly agricultural emissions to be reduced, which (but see note on graphic above) are ~20% of emissions. This is too hard for governments to act on — now.   People love their meat too much to give it up.  But it won't go away.  When we've cut emissions by 70%, agriculture will dominate what's left over.  And action will no longer be postponable.  

✔️ Until then, you personally can cut beef, mutton, pork and cow's milk out of your diet, which would more than halve your emissions from the food you eat.  Even better: if land is freed from animal raising, it can be re-wilded, which reduces the level of Co2 in the atmosphere.  Negative emissions!  If you really care about global heating, this is something direct you can do.  You can only force governments to switch to renewables by acting collectively (by voting), and though we shouldn't give up trying to get collective action, we don't need anybody else's permission to eat less meat.  It's something you can start today.

The position is far from hopeless.  We have the technology to slash emissions from electricity generation and transport. What we lack is the will to act.  Perhaps the upcoming Godzilla El Niño will shift the political logjam.  Make it so.

I hold all the cards

By Dave Whamond

$5000 for everyone!

 By Dave Whamond

Open the Strait

 By Dave Whamond

A dry Danube

 Via Rolf Oldejans

The bed of the Danube on August 21, 2026, near the city of Ruse (Bulgaria).  Not quite completely dry — see the trickle in the distance.  Extraordinary.  A result of the Europe-wide drought.  I wonder how many thousands of years it's been since it last looked like this.

Enemy of the people

 By Dave Granlund

Second hottest January-August ever

 From Zack Labe

The average global temperature so far this year (for the January-August period) is now up to the 2nd warmest on record since the start of this dataset... 

This data is using NOAAGlobalTempv6.1.0: www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/lan...

[Relative to 1900–2000 averages]