It's Good News Friday! (CLIMATE CHANGE)

Coal in the U.S. Is Pointlessly Expensive

I thought that particular ice shelf was going to separate regardless of climate change, and scientists had been expecting it to happen at some point. Or am I thinking of another one?

They’re all starting to get a bit thin…

Posted by a friend of mine who's a longtime power plant engineer

Ooh a PGE shoutout.

The Treasury Is Changing How It Classifies Cars to Make EV Tax Credits Apply Fairly

there's maybe a better thread for this somewhere but,
This is an amazing concept. If I was an investor with available funds I'd take a long look at this.
For school districts it should be a no-brainer. the subject is a company that provides electric busses and the whole support system to schools via a subscription contract (because an electric bus is 3-4 times as expensive as a diesel) to get rid of the up-front cost barrier.




Getting electric school buses in the hands of school districts (volts.wtf)

Forget Tesla and Electric Cars: E-Bikes Are the Future of Transportation (thedailybeast.com)


There was a time—an instant really—when it seemed like e-bike advocates had captured lightning in a bottle.

The E-BIKE Act, a bill introduced by Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-CA) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) in 2021, was placed in the Inflation Reduction Act that was passed by the House of Representatives in 2022. It would have rewarded constituents with a 30 percent tax credit (up to $900) on the purchase of new electric bicycles that cost less than $4,000—a potent incentive for Americans to choose an environmentally friendly, low-cost alternative to driving cars.

It was popular. It was good for the Earth. It would have helped low-income Americans. So, naturally, the Senate killed it. In the end, the E-BIKE Act was removed from the final version of the IRA after a surprise agreement between Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY)—an unfortunate victim of old-fashioned Washington backroom politics.

“That would have been a really incredible moment had it been part of the bill that was ultimately signed into law and passed by the Senate last summer,” David Zipper, a visiting fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Taubman Center for State and Local Government, told The Daily Beast. “But it got killed in the negotiations between Schumer and Manchin, which was really frustrating and disappointing.”


Despite the letdown, Zipper and other transportation policy experts see a bright future for e-bikes. While electric car companies like Tesla and vehicles like the Ford F-150 Lightning dominate the headlines, the two-wheeled variety is slowly making its way up the road—and is even on pace to overtake EVs this year.

“The future transportation revolution is already here—and she arrived on an e-bike,” Janette Sadik-Khan, former commissioner of the New York City Department of Transportation and chair of the National Association of Transportation Officials, told The Daily Beast. “They’re a great alternative to driving. They don’t require parking. They’re less expensive. They’re really changing how people are getting around and I see it every day when I walk or bike in the city.”
......
While the E-BIKE Act didn’t pass at a federal level, advocates have been heartened to see that states and municipalities are beginning to lay the path for an e-bike revolution. And it’s coming even faster than they thought.


“It takes a few months to put together a legislation package even in the best of circumstances usually, but already in the last couple of weeks, there have been proposals put forth,” Zipper said. In the months surrounding the passing of the IRA, states like Vermont, New York, and Oregon have introduced e-bike rebate programs. Cities like Washington D.C., Nashville, and Austin have introduced proposals in the past few weeks alone.

It’s a trend that doesn’t seem like it’s going to go away any time soon either. E-bike sales outpaced EVs and hybrid cars in both 2021 and 2022. That trend is only expected to grow even more in 2023 and beyond as incentive programs get introduced, the wider public embraces micro mobility, and governments reckon with climate change.

“It seems like there was a lot of attention coming from the states and cities where leaders are particularly concerned about climate change, and rather dubious about the value of having autocentric urban areas,” Zipper adds.

Nestled in the thin air of the Colorado Rockies, the city of Denver is setting a trend for the rest of America. In 2022, the Mile High City implemented an e-bike rebate program that grew out of a 2020 vote to increase sales tax to fund $40 million a year for climate change initiatives. When it was introduced, there was a lot of hope from climate change and e-bike advocates that it would be at least a modest success—but that wasn’t the case.

Instead, the program completely blew the doors off even the most optimistic expectations. Denver’s e-bike rebate program was so popular that the September round of the rebate program was claimed in nine minutes of its opening. By the end of 2022, more than 4,700 e-bike rebates were issued with nearly half going to low-income residents. And by all accounts, it’s been successful in its goal of reducing driving. In a survey, 71 percent of those who rode e-bikes said it helped them cut down on their car usage.

Minnesota looks at increasing green energy.

https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/n...es-up-bill-requiring-100-clean-energy-by-2040

The greenhouse effect doesn't work how you (probably) think it does. Warning: if you usually watch educational YouTube videos at 1.5x, slow this one down to 1x; it's dense. But after watching it I feel like a) I have fewer nagging confusions with the ostensible mechanism, and b) the stratospheric cooling is pretty damn solid evidence that the problem is coming from carbon dioxide, not the sun. There are a couple of mistakes in the video on tangential topics -- the relationship between gravity and atmospheric pressure, why sunlight looks white -- but they don't detract from the point. There's also a Sixty Symbols video which at least corrects the most egregiously wrong version of the story, but I think Sabine's is better overall.

European Union Agrees to Essentially Ban Internal-Combustion Cars by 2035

Some actual good news.

Solar is set to pass coal for energy generation in 2027.

Renewables in total now make up 12.8% of all energy sources in the world. This is up from 1.8% just 17 years ago.

These both from the latest International Energy Agency (IEA) report.

Homes in Flood Zones Are Overvalued by Billions, Study Finds

New Jersey to Ban New Gas Car Sales by 2035

They may have been found.

There are certain geographic locations where people simply shouldn't be allowed to live. Not sure why we can't figure that out.

For the first time in history, parts of Los Angeles county are under a blizzard warning.

https://twitter.com/us_stormwatch/status/1628279153685577728?s=46&t=cLlfS7dTKwJoqfG5vbufpQ

A pair of scientists at a conference end their presentation by encouraging people to do more to get the world to deal with global warming. They’re expelled from the conference before they finish and one of them gets fired from their job.

https://www.science.org/content/art...against-climate-scientists-who-staged-climate

But, yeah, Big University’s faked it all for that sweet, sweet grant money that doesn’t match what we spend on college sports at all.

Makes sense, the American Geophysical Union is the geologists, and quite a few of them get fat paychecks from the oil industry.

Five will get you ten that an oil company sponsored the conference.

Yes, but we’ve been assured by certain posters that global warming is all a conspiracy by Big University and that any second now, a new Ice Age is going to hit and we’re all in danger of freezing to death.

An Unexpected Reason It'll Be Harder to Breathe as Earth Warms

Why North Dakota Could Sue Minnesota Over Clean Energy

Sea birds now accustomed to dodging offshore wind turbine blades, says study

Climate Denial King Rupert Murdoch Is Hiring a Director of Sustainability

In pursuit of lunar oxygen, firm discovers recipe for net-zero steel

Track the carbon emissions of billionaires.

https://www.motherjones.com/environ...7-year-old-is-tracking-your-carbon-emissions/

Well, that about wraps it up for glaciers.

https://apple.news/AW5DqZAfAQRKMt1LFX8XK5A

Geoengineering will be moving up the agenda in the next few years, given how fucked we are.

Posting a non-Apple link.
Sorry, @RickDeckard, it wouldn't let me open it without using the Apple News app.

https://phys.org/news/2023-04-glaciers.html

Anyway, the part of the article that triggers my twitchy right eye was this:

"Becoming more affordable" shouldn't even be in the equation. What good is a budget if we have a planet no one can live on? Markets rule the world, and they're going to take us down with them as long as we continue to let the handful of uber rich people who control them remain in charge. They will let us drown while they save themselves.