What’s in a name? Natural gas is mostly methane!

Marketing gurus know that ‘natural’ is healthy, clean, and good for you. Actually methane is bad and nasty — especially for global warming.

by Rebecca Leber, 10/02/2024 in Vox
The end of natural gas has to start with its name: The oil and gas industry didn’t invent the name. But it invented the myth of a clean fuel.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

What’s in a name? Natural gas is mostly methane!

Marketing gurus know that ‘natural’ is healthy, clean, and good for you. Actually methane is bad and nasty — especially for global warming.

by Rebecca Leber, 10/02/2024 in Vox
The end of natural gas has to start with its name: The oil and gas industry didn’t invent the name. But it invented the myth of a clean fuel.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Water vapor amplifies effects of other greenhouse gases

Ask NASA explains greenhouse gases’ roles & properties. Because water vapor condenses into water, it amplifies warming effects of other gases

by Alan Buis 08/02/2022 in Ask NASA Climate
Steamy Relationships: How Atmospheric Water Vapor Supercharges Earth’s Greenhouse Effect: Some people mistakenly believe water vapor is the main driver of Earth’s current warming. But increased water vapor doesn’t cause human-produced global warming. Instead, it’s a consequence of it. Increased water vapor in the atmosphere supercharges the warming caused by other greenhouse gases.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Water vapor amplifies effects of other greenhouse gases

Ask NASA explains greenhouse gases’ roles & properties. Because water vapor condenses into water, it amplifies warming effects of other gases

by Alan Buis 08/02/2022 in Ask NASA Climate
Steamy Relationships: How Atmospheric Water Vapor Supercharges Earth’s Greenhouse Effect: Some people mistakenly believe water vapor is the main driver of Earth’s current warming. But increased water vapor doesn’t cause human-produced global warming. Instead, it’s a consequence of it. Increased water vapor in the atmosphere supercharges the warming caused by other greenhouse gases.

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Jump onto early tipping signs to maximize remediation chances

Tipping points should be identified early and acted on fast to tackle the climate crisis. Social change needs to be dramatically accelerated.

by Damian Carrington, 11/02/2022 in The Guardian
Identify A-ha moments to trigger fast climate action, say UK scientists: Using ‘tipping points’ can unlock the changes needed on energy, food and plastics, analysis shows

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Jump onto early tipping signs to maximize remediation chances

Tipping points should be identified early and acted on fast to tackle the climate crisis. Social change needs to be dramatically accelerated.

by Damian Carrington, 11/02/2022 in The Guardian
Identify A-ha moments to trigger fast climate action, say UK scientists: Using ‘tipping points’ can unlock the changes needed on energy, food and plastics, analysis shows

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

A take on American evidence for global warming

We live in an interesting time where established trends and NB4 events pointing to global collapse seem almost ordinary.

by Thomas Neuberger, 10/02/2022
In the Climate World, Everything New Is Old Again: We live in an interesting time, tucked between the start of a world-historical collapse and stories about it so old they sound not special at all.

…. Isn’t There a Game On?

It’s an interesting time we live in — tucked between the start of a world-historical global collapse and stories about it that are so old they sound, well, almost ordinary, almost not special at all.

The next phase of this interesting time, of course, will get everyone’s attention, since it involves a scale of suffering that even the comfortable can’t escape. But that’s for later, of course — after it really will be too late for anyone to escape at all.

For now, though, simply note the contradiction. If it weren’t so tragic, it would be the stuff of farce. But please don’t dwell on this too long — you might miss the game.

Read the complete article….
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

Old report: fossil fuel’s political donations and Government

ACF tracking in 2020 shows huge fossil fuel political donations to influence our political parties.

Many of my posts here have noted that special interests in the fossil fuel and related industries have effectively turned many of our members of Parliament into puppets putting the interests of the industry ahead of the country’s citizens. I came across the Australian Conservation Foundation’s 12/02/2020 report, “Fossil fuel money distorting democracy” giving precise numbers showing how the fossil fuel political donations are used to distort our democracy away from the public interest, and towards their private profits. These have just been updated 01/02/2022 on-line in the report, “Fossil fuel industry donates big to major parties“.

“This data shows just how dark and opaque the financing of our politics is, with 38% of the money that funds Australia’s major parties having no identifiable source,” said the Australian Conservation Foundation’s Democracy Campaigner Jolene Elberth.

From the 2022 update

Cover page of the report.

Fossil fuel money distorting democracy

Key findings

Donations from the fossil fuel industry are on the rise. Fossil fuel donations to the major parties peaked in the 2018-19 period. Overall, the industry donated a total of $1,894,024, excluding donations to the United Australia Party.

The extractive industries are by far the largest donors from the coal, oil and gas sector, accounting for over half of the total donations to the major parties since 2015-16.

• There is a severe lack of transparency over money flowing to politicians from donations. We found that from 2015-2019 the major parties had close to $283 million in income from undisclosed sources. In the 2018-2019 fiscal year alone, the major parties received over $100,000,000 in income from undisclosed sources. This ‘dark money’ in the system is worsened by the extremely loose regulations on associated entities. In 2018-2019, associated entities disclosed just over one third of the income they received, while around 67% of money came from undisclosed sources. This money is often then donated to political parties, further obscuring the true source of
the donation.

Read the complete article….

What are fossil fuel’s political donations getting for their money?

The puppets show and tell
Captain Humbug (A.K.A. Scotty from Marketing) showing the parliamentary puppet troop what it is all about behind his then PM, “Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared, it won’t hurt you. It’s coal.” With these words Australia’s Treasurer Scott Morrison taunted the Opposition, attempting to ridicule its commitment to renewable energy.” – Picture from The Conversation (15-02-2017). See also Katherine Murphy in The Guardian on 09/02/2017 for the live video — “Scott Morrison brings coal to question time: what fresh idiocy is this? What a bunch of clowns, hamming it up – while out in the real world an ominous and oppressive heat just won’t let up.”

There can be no doubt that Scotty from Marketing is going all out to promote the fossil fuel industry and protect their interests from any harm arising from actions to bring the climate emergency under control. Whether this the direct pay-back for fossil fuel’s political donations or not, I don’t know. But he has also made it abundantly clear that he is not leading Parliament or the people in fighting the fires of the climate emergency: From the official transcript dated 20/12/2019 from the PM’s own office, Scotty made it abundantly clear to John Stanley on 2GB Radio that HE doesn’t fight fires… “But I know Australians understand… that, you know, I don’t hold a hose, mate, and I don’t sit in a control room. That’s the brave people who do that are doing that job. But I know that Australians would want me back at this time out of these fatalities. So I’ll happily come back [from his secret holiday in Hawaii] and do that.”

Sixteen year-old Greta tells us and everyone at the 2019 World Economic Forum in Davos how we and our governments should actually respond to the climate emergency:

greta-act-as-if-the-house-was-on-fire
Listen to Greta’s speech live. Except for her reliance on the IPCC’s overoptimistic emissions budget, everything she says is spot on that even she, as a child, can understand.

In other words, smell the smoke, see the reality, and fight the fire that is burning up our only planet so we can give our offspring a hopeful future. This is the only issue that matters. All Capt. Humbug and his troop of wooden-headed puppets are doing is rearranging the furniture in the burning house to be incinerated along with anything else we may care about. In Greta’s words, “even a small child can understand [this]”. People hope for their children’s futures. She doesn’t want your hope. She wants you to panic enough to wake up and fight the fire…. so she can have some hope for her future.

To stop continued the puppet government’s continued smothering of effective action against the emergency their members need to be removed from Parliament and be replaced by rational people who have publicly committed themselves to putting acting on the climate emergency on the top of their agenda if elected.

Vote Climate One’s Traffic Light Voting System will help you use our country’s preferential voting system in your electorate to rank candidates to elect your personally favored pro-climate candidate and avoid voting for puppets or those who might pass their preferences on to a puppet. If enough people follow this guide, we should be able to elect a new government that will give our children and grand children a foreseeable and hopeful future.

Will you help us give our kids a hopeful future?
Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

To combat global warming focus more on methane

The US EPA [and others] use the wrong global warming potential for methane and radically underestimate the importance of controlling it.

By Phil McKenna, 09/02/2022 in Inside Climate News
To Counter Global Warming, Focus Far More on Methane, a New Study Recommends: Scientists at Stanford have concluded that the EPA has radically undervalued the climate impact of methane, a “short-lived climate pollutant,” by focusing on a 100-year metric for quantifying global warming

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.

To combat global warming focus more on methane

The US EPA [and others] use the wrong global warming potential for methane and radically underestimate the importance of controlling it.

By Phil McKenna, 09/02/2022 in Inside Climate News
To Counter Global Warming, Focus Far More on Methane, a New Study Recommends: Scientists at Stanford have concluded that the EPA has radically undervalued the climate impact of methane, a “short-lived climate pollutant,” by focusing on a 100-year metric for quantifying global warming

Views expressed in this post are those of its author(s), not necessarily all Vote Climate One members.