Hottest month ever

More than 20 decomposing horses were discovered at a dried-up pool in northern Australia ( Facebook/Alice Springs Community Forum )
Source: The Independent

From The Guardian:

January was Australia’s hottest month on record, with the country’s mean temperature exceeding 30C for the first time since records began in 1910.

The Bureau of Meteorology released its climate summary for January on Friday and said the widespread heatwave conditions and daily extremes were “unprecedented”.

“There’s been so many records it’s really hard to count,” said Andrew Watkins, a senior climatologist at the Bom.

January was Australia’s warmest month for mean, maximum and minimum temperatures.

Large parts of Australia received only 20% of their normal rainfall, particularly throughout the south-east in Victoria and parts of New South Wales and South Australia.

Tasmania, which has been battling bushfires throughout the past month, had its driest ever January.

Watkins said Borrona Downs in north-west NSW broke the record for hottest minimum temperature, registering one night at 36.6C.

Port Augusta recorded the country’s highest ever temperature in January, reaching 49.5C.

“We’ve also seen records in many states set including places like Victoria where Swan Hill and Kerang got up over 47.5C,” Watkins said.

Menindee in far-west NSW, the site of December and January’s mass fish kills, had four days in a row of temperatures above 47C.

In parts of western Queensland and western NSW, there have been long strings of more than 40 days of temperatures above 40C.

Cloncurry had 43 days in a row that exceeded 40C.

Birdsville in the state’s west had 16 days in January of temperatures higher than 45C and 10 of those days were in a row.

New South Wales, the Australian Capital Territory, Victoria and the Northern Territory all had their warmest January on record.

[Read more here]

I notice that our dotty Right (the "Liberal"/"National" Party coalition) has been completely silent on this environmental catastrophe, except to continue to promote coal power stations.  It is impossible for me now to hold them in any more contempt than I do.  Remember when Tony Abbott said "climate change is crap"?  And President Klutz said it's all a Chinese plot? 

Why are we so beset by cretins?

We have a fighting chance

Emissions have probably peaked, or will soon, but that still means that the level of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise, because we are still adding to it faster than natural processes can remove it. To stop the level in parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere from rising, we have to reduce emissions by at least 80%.  Maybe more, because the natural "sinks" which absorb CO2 are full--the world's seas, for example are already turning more acidic.

Source

The good news is that emissions are about to start falling.

Renewables are getting progressively cheaper, and are steadily replacing coal.  The total costs of new renewables (without "firming") are now at or below the total cost of new coal and gas. Over the next 10 or so years, BNEF reckons that the total cost of new renewables will fall below the operating cost (mostly fuel and maintenance) of existing coal and gas power plants.  At that point, coal and gas power station shut-downs will be limited only by the cost of "firming", i.e, the costs of making variable wind and solar as "firm" as supply from baseload power stations which burn coal, gas or uranium.  And the costs of batteries, concentrated solar power (CSP) are falling fast, and there is always the 100 year old technology of pumped hydro storage.  Some estimates show that the cost of pumped hydro is as low $20/MWh.  CSP is coming at at $60-$70/MWh for power plus storage: "firm" (i.e. baseload) plus dispatchable capacity.  And you don't need 100% backup for variable renewables.  In most places 25% will do, so you will be able to combine cheap wind and solar with some storage and get baseload output more cheaply than from coal and gas.  At that point, existing coal and gas power stations will be rapidly and completely replaced with renewables.

(Source)

For the first time, mid-priced electric cars are available, and China (responsible for 1/3rd of global CO2 emissions) has tough new standards to reduce the sale of petrol/diesel vehicles (ICEVs). France, UK, Holland, Austria and now California are contemplating or planning a ban on petrol/diesel car sales from 2030 onward.  By 2022 or so, EVs will have the same "sticker price" as ICEVs, but they are far cheaper to drive.  By 2030, or before, 100% of car and light van sales will be electric.

Source

There remain some hurdles--agriculture, burning forests/scrubland, cement and iron and steel production, jet travel. But even together, these are smaller than transport and electricity generation combined. If we can convert electricity production to renewables/nuclear and can electrify our car/truck fleet, we have a fighting chance.

But there is a race between de-carbonising our economy and the rise in world temperatures.  As long as atmospheric CO2 keeps on rising, so will average world temperatures.  And CO2 will only stop rising when CO2 emissions have fallen at least 80%.

Global temperatures are rising by 0.2 degrees C per decade. The rise may be accelerating--let's hope that it's not.

Source NOAA

Let's say it takes us 20 years to move to 100% renewable electricity. Hydro+renewables are now 22% of world electricity supply, which means we need to target a 4% per annum switch, but it will likely be slower in earlier years and much faster towards the end.  That means that global temperatures will rise by another 0.4 degrees.

Cars will take longer. As I said, we'll prolly get to 100% electric sales by 2030, maybe earlier, but cars last a long time (I've seen data varying between 11 and 20 years, depending on the country) If it's 20 years, we won't have a 100% car fleet till 2050. That means temps will rise another 0.2 degrees. So by 2050 we will end up 0.6 degrees above 2016, 1.8 degrees (?) above the pre-industrial average. Plus there are built in lags in the system's response to forcing which will cause temperatures to go on rising for a few decades even with zero emissions.

Hence the "fighting chance" in my title: we have started the switch to a carbon-free economy, but we have left it so late we may not avoid catastrophe.  We have a "fighting chance".

But I suspect the screws will tighten every year. Despite Donald Trump, Tony Abbott and other gibbering imbeciles on the right. What will it take to make the Republicans sensible about global warming? How many more hurricanes, heatwaves, floods? Miami constantly under water from "nuisance" or "sunny day" flooding?

The world is going to commit itself ever more urgently and with ever greater force to reducing CO2 emissions as the evidence of global warming becomes ever more obvious and the cost of de-carbonising continues to fall.  And that improves the odds of our "fighting chance".

The Right is wrong

In a radio program, Tony Abbott, a former PM of Australia, a prominent member of the right wing of the "Liberal" Party that is in power at present in Australia said:

"Green religion" trumped common sense for the last 15 years.

(Source: The Guardian)

Over the last 15 years, industrial scale solar has fallen 95% in cost. 15 years ago, wind and solar were many times more expensive than fossil fuels. Since 2009, when Abbott started his self-serving anti-renewables crusade, wind has fallen 66% in cost and solar 85% (Lazard).

Source: NOAA

At the same time, the world was 0.34 degrees cooler in 2002 than it is now, using NOAA data. So it was reasonable for people to be cautious about a switch to renewables 15 years ago, or even 7 years ago. But this hardened into dogma on the Right. And dogma is rarely susceptible to facts.

Over the next 15 years, global temperatures kept on rising. And rising. And the costs of renewables kept on falling. And falling. Renewables are now cheaper than new coal here in Australia, and in most places around the world. In another decade or so, the total cost of new wind and solar will be less than the fuel cost of fossil fuel generators everywhere. At that point even fully depreciated (=cheap) coal power stations will be shuttered. Incidentally, that tipping point is closer in Australia with its aging coal generation fleet than it is in many other countries.

It used to be--30 or 40 or 50 years ago--that conservatives were the practical side of politics, pragmatic, facts-based, opposed to subsidies, realistic. It was the Left who were the dreamers, who believed in and reached for a better world. But the Right (here in Oz and in the USA) now has a bizarre religion: coal. Even though coal is more expensive than renewables, even though everyone can see that coal is doomed, they love coal so much they actually favour subsidies for coal mines and coal power stations!

Technology and economics are on the side of the Left. Wind and solar (and increasingly batteries) are cheap and clean. They need no fuel. They won't cause the world to heat up even more. They don't kill people with air pollution, because they don't cause any. The desire for a better world aligns with the new cheap technologies, not with the nostalgic nonsense of the Right.

It's wonderful that facts are on the side of the dreamers, now. And surely very perilous for the Right. For ordinary citizens also want a better world for themselves and their children. And they know that renewables are not just necessary but also superior to the technologies of the past: cleaner, healthier, cheaper, better.  As global temperatures rise, and the consequences of global warming--droughts, floods, hurricanes, sea level rise, killing heat waves--become more and more serious, public opinion will sharply shift.  Those who have spent decades lying about global warming will become outsiders, and right-wing parties will carry an enduring stigma.  Prudent politicians on the Right would be wise to start disowning the denialist fictions and severing their ties with denialist "thinktanks" or they will pay the electoral price.

Navel Gazing

This cartoon is about the utterly appalling Oz government of Captain Clownshoes.

See more Wilcox cartoons here.

There is only so much one can take

Lifestyles

The cartoon refers to The Cane Toad's designed-to-annoy comment that remote-community Aborigines live there for "lifestyle" reasons.

What a doos.

[See more Broelmans here]

Causes of death in Oz

Our malign and loathsome government has picked on "terrorism" to try and lift its poll ratings. Now tell me, why would you pick on that, when there are other much more serious causes of death?  Why reduce and remove our freedoms for something which isn't even in the top ten causes of death in Australia?  Why?

{and note, that's terrorism deaths from 1978, not 2003, which are the data for all the others)

The Cane Toad

With any luck, our loathsome PM, Tony Abbott, alias the Cane Toad or Captain Clownshoes, will soon be gone.  It's telling when even a former Liberal PM (Liberal in Oz = right-wing) finds Captain Clownshoes too much.

The Other Death Cult

Another classic Broelman

Briquettes

Matt Golding is a cartoonist with The Age/Sydney Morning Herald

Only 1

For Americans: the "Liberal" party in Australia is far-right, not centre-left. And it is corrupt.

Hat tip to Glenn Murray for images

Abbott's Emissions Target

Another superb Broelman

Hottest August Ever

NOAA's data.  The hottest August ever recorded.  It was the hottest May, the hottest June, the 4th hottest July, and now the hottest August (double click to get bigger chart; source here).

And the hottest 12 months ever.

And the equal hottest 60 months ever.

But of course, The Cane Toad has told us that "Climate Change is Crap".

Renewable Energy

In Oz, our esteemed prime minister wants to abolish the RET (= renewable energy target).  (Via @cathywilcox1)

Hottest June ever

Source

After the hottest May ever, we get another new GLOBAL record.  Hottest June ever.

Yep.  Climate change is crap.  Sure thing.  Just ask The Cane Toad.

What budget emergency?

The Abbott government argues that its swingeing budget cuts are necessary because of a "budget emergency".  As my mate Saul Eslake comments:

Saul Eslake of Bank of America Merrill Lynch said the incoming Conservative government in Britain had faced a "budget crisis" and a "debt emergency" in 2010. The projected deficit was 10 per cent of gross domestic product, and net public debt was in excess of 60 per cent of GDP.

To apply similar terms to Australia with a prospective deficit of 2 per cent of GDP and net public debt of 15 per cent of GDP was "to abuse the English language".

Indeed.

But even if it was a budget emergency, why is the burden being born by the poor alone?  Because the so-called "libs" are hostile to the poor.  The budget emergency is confected, not real.  And they're using it to rush through cuts to welfare dear to the hearts of the rabid right.

Miss me yet?

The new, sadly misnamed "liberal" government has been so appalling I suspect there are many out there who will answer "yes". Or even "YES!"

Climate change is flooding the East Coast

[of the US, that is]

Not just Miami.

Here is the original Reuters article.

Source: Reuters

But of course, climate change is crap. Ask Tony.

More on BC's Carbon Tax

Carbon taxes work.   Contrary to our esteemed PM's gabble before the the introduction of Oz's carbon tax, there was no slowdown in Australia's  economy after it came in, just as there wasn't in British Columbia, which introduced one before we did with huge success  Yet in both Australia and BC carbon use fell.  As Grist's article points out, it's likely that BC, Oregon, Washington and California will join up into a single coordinated carbon pricing zone.  This will complement the east coast RGGI and the schemes in Quebec and Ontario.  And Mexico has started to move towards solar power as costs drop (table in Wikipedia piece out of date).  By my calculations roughly half of North America will be part of major carbon emission control measures. And that's before President Obama's new initiatives.

I'm still hoping that sense will prevail.

Another Abbottism

Via