islander wrote:

The largest electric utility in our state is asking for yet another rate increase. They say the want to add two new, natural gas-fired units at an already existing plant. We already pay well above the national average for electricity.

here's a positive little nugget from last week:

Renewable energy outpaces coal for electricity generation in historic first, report says

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/09/nx-s1-5564746/renewable-energy-coal-electricity-first

Too bad that we are retreating from this sector and leaving progress to the rest of the world.

I've had a bad renter in our place, They have burdened the system during the hot months / humid storms a lot and caused more usage than normal. I haven't seen the final tally, but I expect I'll have to pay ~$50 for their extravagance. If we were dependent on the grid it would have been close to $700.  Solar works.

Record leap in CO2 fuels fears of accelerating global heating
CO2 in air hit new high last year, with scientists concerned natural land and ocean carbon sinks are weakening

The global average concentration of the gas surged by 3.5 parts per million to 424ppm in 2024, the largest increase since modern measurements started in 1957, according to the report by the World Meteorological Organization.

Several factors contributed to the leap in CO₂, including another year of unrelenting fossil fuel burning despite a pledge by the world’s countries in 2023 to “transition away” from coal, oil and gas. Another factor was an upsurge in wildfires in conditions made hotter and drier by global heating. Wildfire emissions in the Americas reached historic levels in 2024, which was the hottest year yet recorded.

However, scientists are concerned about a third factor: the possibility that the planet’s carbon sinks are beginning to fail. About half of all CO₂ emissions every year are taken back out of the atmosphere by being dissolved in the ocean or being sucked up by growing trees and plants. But the oceans are getting hotter and can therefore absorb less CO₂ while on land hotter and drier conditions and more wildfires mean less plant growth.

Energy Dept. adds ‘climate change’ and ‘emissions’ to banned words list
It is the latest in a series of Trump administration efforts to dispute, silence or downplay climate change.

The words on the DOE list are at the heart of EERE’s mission: It is the government’s largest investor in technologies that help reduce heat-trapping emissions that cause climate change as well as the hazardous pollution from fossil fuels. It is the latest in a series of Trump administration efforts to dispute, silence or downplay the realities of climate change.

“Please ensure that every member of your team is aware that this is the latest list of words to avoid — and continue to be conscientious about avoiding any terminology that you know to be misaligned with the Administration’s perspectives and priorities,” the directive from acting director of external affairs Rachel Overbey said.

Lithuania declares agriculture emergency after crops damaged by rain

About 50-70% of Lithuania's agricultural harvest has been harmed or destroyed by heavy rainfall this summer, the government said on Wednesday as it declared a national emergency to help farmers.

"In many places the farmers cannot harvest their crops because the fields are flooded," the government said in a statement, adding that much of the remaining harvest had been reduced in quality.

Lithuania produces wheat and other grains as well as root crops such as potatoes but the government did not give a breakdown of which was worst hit.

The Baltic country's rainfall in June and July was the second heaviest on record, exceeded only by 2007, it said.

Neighbouring Latvia announced a national emergency on similar grounds last week, national broadcaster LSM reported.

"This year's crop has suffered significantly and may not be harvested," said Latvian Agriculture Minister Armands Krauze.

Canada wildfire season already second worst on record as experts warn of ‘new reality’
More than 470 Canadian fires classified as ‘out of control’ as scientists say climate change exacerbating the burning

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🚨ACTION OF THE DAY🚨
@standupforscience.bsky.social

Day 6! Leave a public comment opposing the repeal of the EPA Endangerment Finding.

✍️ Comment here: https://www.regulations.gov/co...

🧠 Learn more here: https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/03...

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Use and adapt our drafted comment below or write your own!

I strongly oppose the proposed repeal of the Endangerment Finding. The science is clear: greenhouse gases unequivocally harm our health and our environment. Weakening or repealing the Endangerment Finding will make it harder, and costlier to protect our communities from pollution and from the effects of climate change.

Optional: I care about this issue because

American Truth™
Contrarian climate assessment from U.S. government draws swift pushback
Researchers say DOE report cherry-picks data to downplay threat of greenhouse gases

The last assessment of the state of climate science from the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), published in its final form 2 years ago, was a monumental effort, with 721 volunteer scientists synthesizing all available published research. Yesterday, the Department of Energy (DOE) released its own climate assessment, as part of a campaign by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overturn its landmark endangerment finding from 2009, which found that burning fossil fuels endangers public health and established carbon dioxide as a pollutant EPA could regulate. But the DOE report—called A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate—had fewer authors than IPCC’s: just five.

Handpicked by DOE Secretary Chris Wright, a fossil fuel entrepreneur, the authors are well known to climate scientists. Although the members of this Climate Working Group all hold scientific doctorates, they hold contrarian views on climate science that are out of step with the mainstream. The report, assembled in months, argues that some of the warming attributed to fossil fuel burning is instead driven by natural cycles or variability in the Sun, and that sea level rise has not been accelerating. Climate researchers say the authors cherry-picked evidence and highlighted uncertainties to achieve the net effect of downplaying the impacts of climate change. “This shows how far we have sunk,” says Naomi Oreskes, a historian of science at Harvard University. “Climate denial is now the official policy of the U.S. government.”

The report is far from comprehensive. Many of its arguments are common among critics of climate action, previously made online and in obscure journals. It amounts to a “law brief from attorneys defending their client, carbon dioxide,” said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University, on Bluesky. “Their goal is not to weigh the evidence fairly but to build the strongest possible case for (carbon dioxide’s) innocence. This is a fundamental departure from the norms of science.” (...)

 Jiggz wrote:

The immediate cause of the water crisis was the extreme drought from 2015–2017 that exceeded the planning norms of the Department of Water and Sanitation. Research on long-term weather data done by the Climate System Analysis Group at the University of Cape Town determined that the low rainfall between the years 2015 and 2017 was a very rare and extreme event.^<49> Decreasing rainfall trends are linked to broader changes in the atmospheric and oceanic circulation, including the poleward shift of the Southern Hemisphere moisture corridor between 2015–17, displacement of the jet-stream and an expansion of the semi-permanent South Atlantic High.^<50> 2017 was the driest year since 1933, and possibly earlier, since comparable data before 1933 was not available. It also found that a drought of this severity would statistically occur approximately once every 300 years.^<32>

Bog-standard denialist.

 R_P wrote:


Not true...Cape Town faced Day Zero (when it would run out of water completely) back in 2018....and its nothing to do with climate change.
Cut out the bullshit.......