Green energy is better for the environment and for the economy

Michigan’s COVID data, as of Tuesday, November 1, continues to show a good decline. The weekly peaks in new cases per day for the last few weeks are 1952, 1734, 1710, and 1222. The number of deaths per day remains in the 11-22 range as it has since May. Meteor Blades of Daily Kos, in an Earth Matters report, wrote about the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin from the World Meteorological Organization. The bulletin reports the emissions of greenhouse gasses went up in 2021. We may be switching to electric cars and building more ways to generate renewable power, but it isn’t anywhere near enough yet. At the rate of increase limiting warming to 1.5C or even 2C may not be possible. If we are to attempt to reach that goal we need to cut the 2019 rate of emissions by 43% by 2030. At the current rate we’ll only cut the rate by 0.3%. Blades also discussed the 2022 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change. It says our addiction to fossil fuels is killing us at the rate of millions of people a year. A big killer is heat and many of those who die are agricultural workers. High heat also leads to lost labor – perhaps 470 billion hours globally in 2021. Heat and drought expanded food insecurity. Also airborne particulates kill huge numbers. Add in diseases, such as malaria, which have more hot days to spread. Said Dr. Marina Romanello, executive director of the report, “Our health is at the mercy of fossil fuels.” Damian Carrington at The Guardian wrote:

The Lancet report also tracks the fossil fuel system. It found that 80% of the 86 governments assessed were subsidising fossil fuels, providing a collective $400bn in 2019. These subsidies were bigger than national health spending in five countries, including Iran and Egypt, and more than 20% of health spending in another 16 countries. “Governments have so far failed to provide the smaller sum of $100bn per year to help support climate action in lower income countries,” the report notes.

Bill McKibbin, writing on substack, added:

My only quibble is that when one says “fossil fuel addiction,” it might summon up an image of the wrong culprit. Humans aren’t addicted to fossil fuels—we’re just as happy getting our power from solar panels or wind turbines. Happier, even. ... It’s Big Oil’s that’s addicted to fossil fuel profits—but the side effects are killing the planet.

Mark Sumner of Kos wrote that the reason why gas prices remain high is because of Big Oil, which is collecting record profits. They changed their pricing back in 2014 when they switched from charging 3% of the cost of a barrel of oil for a gallon of gas to charging 5%. Sumner also noted that companies like Shell make big profits from the difference between the asking price for a barrel, somewhere around $90 now, and the actual cost of the oil they produce, currently averaging $48 a barrel. The cost of refining a gallon of gas is about $1.21. Since the cost of gas influences the cost of everything else we buy Biden tweeted:

I'm doing everything I can to keep lowering gas prices for families. But energy companies, it's your turn. You're paying less for the oil – it's time to charge less at the pump.

Christiaan Treibert of the New York Times tweeted photos along with a link to an article:

Satellite imagery shows the devastating toll of the worst flood that Nigeria has experienced in years. 200K homes are damaged, infrastructure and vast sections of farmlands are destroyed, at least 603 killed, 2,4K injured and over a million displaced.

Disastrous flooding in Pakistan was just months ago. For some good news, Matthew Gertz (not Rep. Matt Gaetz) tweeted a link to an NYT article with this quote:

Thanks to astonishing declines in the price of renewables, a truly global political mobilization, a clearer picture of the energy future and serious policy focus from world leaders, we have cut expected warming almost in half in just five years.

Joan McCarter of Kos reported that House Republicans trotted out their ambitious energy agenda. Yeah, it’s the same stuff they’ve been peddling for close to a decade: They call for opening up more public lands for drilling and doing it faster (with less regulation) even though they have 9,000 leases they haven’t used yet. There is one difference – they’re trying to vilify Biden rather than Obama. Yep, vilifying Biden is part of their energy agenda. Remember the Solyndra scandal? Back in 2011 the Solyndra company got a hefty (for one company) guaranteed loan and still failed. One problem in finding the equivalent Biden scandal is that many of the new energy investments will happen in red states. They’ll try anyway. Max Kennerly tweeted (with graphs):

Needs to be repeated again and again: green energy is better for the environment *and* for the economy. Oil, natural gas, and coal prices are absurdly volatile. The more energy we get from wind and solar, the less susceptible we are to energy price shocks.

There has been a lot of news about the intruder into the Pelosi home who attacked Nancy’s husband Paul with a hammer, sending him to the hospital. Details of the crime can be found on your favorite news services (though not accurately on conservative sites). Laura Clawson of Kos reviewed what Republican organizations have been saying about Nancy Pelosi and how violent those words have been for more than a decade. This was an assassination attempt, the second in two years (the first on Jan 6). Clawson also reported on the dodge-and-weave Republicans are doing. There’s the both-sides nonsense, equating an assault of a political canvasser and other small crimes with assassination attempts and a decade of violent language against Nancy. And there’s the conspiracy theories, claiming the attacker was Paul’s secret drunken gay tryst gone bad. Clawson quoted tweets by Gertz which discussed how the conspiracy was embraced by a big chunk of the GOP base, which needs a distraction from who inspired the assailant. Of course, all this was inspiration for cartoonists. RJ Matson drew a hammer dripping blood and labeled “violence” with the caption, “This is not a vote.” And Nick Anderson drew a wild-eyed man with a hammer beside a robed figure labeled “SCOTUS” holding a gavel and saying, “This one is far more effective.” Sumner reported that John Eastman, nasty guy crony and fellow coup plotter, was ordered to turn over letters to the January 6 Committee (after he ran out of appeals). He tried to tell them they could have the letters, but they weren’t allowed to read them. They read them anyway. And what at least one of them showed was an effort to get Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to be a part of their effort. They figured if Thomas could declare he had doubts about the results of the 2020 Georgia election the chance of challenging the state during the Electoral College count would go up. And, yes, they knew it was illegal. They had already been in contact with wife Ginni Thomas, who had encouraged attempts at keeping the nasty guy in office. Even so, it looks like Clarence was not actually contacted to join the effort. Dave Whamond tweeted a cartoon of an old elephant in a wheelchair. Beside him a young donkey says, “Grandpa keeps saying that Russia is good and democracy is bad! Why is he saying the opposite of everything he ever taught me?” A mother donkey replies, “Sometimes Grandpa gets confused, dear.” In a Ukraine update from Monday, Kos of Kos discussed the deal between Ukraine and Turkey and Russia and Turkey to allow shipments of grain out of Ukraine. Over the weekend a drone attacked the Russian naval base in Sevastopol, Crimea. Russia, already looking for an excuse to get out of the deal that would expire later this month anyway, said they would no longer protect the grain ships. It didn’t matter because Turkey assumed the role of escorting the ships. If Russia attacked those Turkish escorts it would be attacking NATO. The grain continues to feed the world. Since then Russia said they are back in the deal, through they attacked a barge carrying grain on a Ukrainian river. At the top of the post is an artillery shell with “Daily Kos says ‘hi’” painted on it. The site Sign My Rocket will allow a donor to send a message into Russia. The donation, which Kos paid from his own funds, goes towards the Ukrainian military.