Climate change is no longer a future problem. It is here, and the effects are all around. Worse, today’s extreme weather events are just a preview of the pain that awaits humanity in the coming decades, almost regardless of how fast we manage to decarbonise the economy this year or next.
Such sobering observations tend to provoke arguments about the importance of “climate optimism.” Pessimism, after all, demotivates. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream, not a nightmare, for the future his children would inhabit.
I typically join these calls for optimism. The accelerating pace of the clean-energy race is heartening, as is the emergence of positive socioeconomic feedback loops to match all the negative ones associated with climatic tipping points. Still, while the pace of clean-energy deployment is faster than it has ever been, the world overall is racing in the wrong direction: global greenhouse-gas emissions are still rising.
So, how should we talk about this challenge, with these two dynamics tugging in opposite directions?
One answer is to embrace the language of risks and uncertainties. Not too long ago, those resisting climate action were the ones playing up the issue of uncertainty. The “merchants of doubt” – marginal scientists and other commentators in hock to the fossil-fuel industry – focused on our lack of complete knowledge to challenge the strengthening consensus around anthropogenic climate change. Uncertainty was their friend. But for the rest of us, it is public enemy number one. The unknowns and unknowables are what make climate change such an urgent problem.
Over the past few decades, advances in climate science and economics have helped to quantify more climate-related uncertainties. This progress has been both helpful and alarming, because it has further underscored just how dangerous those uncertainties truly are.
Above all, it shows that we need climate action not only to keep relatively slow-moving averages from increasing further, but – even more importantly – to keep uncertainties in check. The floods, droughts, wildfires, and other extreme climate-driven phenomena are what make the problem so costly. Conversely, climate policymaking that cuts off the tail end of the extreme-weather distribution should be regarded as a major success.
Sometimes, this will literally mean taking out insurance against the worst phenomena. Insurance mandates, for example, would compel homeowners to account for the cost of floods and wildfires when deciding where to live. As the price of homeowner’s insurance rises in disaster-prone areas, mandates could become one of the most effective ways to encourage climate-change adaptation.
Similarly, investments in low-carbon energy sources are often best viewed as investments in resilience – and thus in decreased uncertainty. Lowering one’s average carbon footprint ought to be valued and appropriately rewarded. But whether you are installing solar panels on your roof, using a battery pack as backup storage, or switching to a heat pump and induction stove, the biggest payoff comes in extreme circumstances, or the lack thereof.
The solar panels and battery packs will ensure that your lights stay on even if the grid goes down because of extreme weather. Similarly, a heat pump and induction stove will allow you to cut off your gas line and declare independence from future gas supply shocks that directly affect your heating bill. (The indirect effect via the electric bill points immediately back to solar panels and battery packs, and it further reinforces the urgency to decarbonise the overall electric grid.)
The cost of solar and all-electric appliances will only decline over time, whereas natural gas and oil markets will continue to fluctuate, owing to the vagaries of geopolitics and the global economy. A surefire way to prevent fossilflation is to get off fossil fuels altogether.
What is true for homeowners also is true for whole economies. Less dependence on fossil fuels means less uncertainty. True, the clean-energy transition also relies on potentially volatile commodities like copper, lithium, and other critical minerals. But there are crucial differences between these and fossil fuels. For one, the millions of tons of material going into clean technologies are orders of magnitude smaller than the billions of tons of fossil fuels being burned every year. And still better technologies with ever-lower costs are likely to emerge as we rapidly climb the learning curve on clean-energy solutions.
The trend lines support a cautiously optimistic outlook on the clean-energy future. But there are plenty of hurdles still to overcome, many of them erected and propped up by fossil-fuel incumbents trying to delay the inevitable. There is also plenty of climate-driven pain and destruction still in store. Things will get worse before they get better.
But even if we can no longer prevent climate change, we can still mitigate it by minimizing the accompanying uncertainties. We must embrace these uncertainties for what they are: a wake-up call to prevent the worst. Climate risk is financial risk, and climate action is an insurance policy – for the world as much as for individual companies and for us as individuals.
Gernot Wagner, a climate economist at Columbia Business School, is the author, most recently, of Geoengineering: The Gamble (Polity, 2021). Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2023, and published here with permission.
96 Comments
All I know is that if this kind of weather continues in NZ, solar really sucks. My mother has 6 panels on the roof and a grid tied inverter in Auckland and it cannot even offset the energy usage of one person let alone a family of four. The summer was terrible, normally you would expect a credit on your summer power bill to help offset the winter bills. Hydro is a great option, no shortage of rain.
6 panels is plenty, doesn't matter how many panels you have if its overcast and raining all the time they are useless. 450W a panel with an MPPT usually gets over the rated Wattage of the panel so that's approaching 3kW. Considering PDK is trying to exist on a single 50W panel and bit of hydro in the back yard I would say that's plenty. The hot water and the Hob in the house is Gas.
MPPT is not magical. Rather, it allows gathering the maximum power in most situations, as opposed to older technology like PWM which would clip off some of the voltage. It is rare that the sunlight in NZ exceeds 1000W/sqm they are rated at.
A sub 3kw array is very undersized. A typical residental installation should be something like 6.5kW, married to a 5kW inverter, because a 6.5kW array will spend 95% of it's life below 5kW of production.
You could expect 2kW of output on sunny days. Judging by the panel capacity these are relatively new. You should know that is about $1,000 of panels at wholesale, even though the install likely cost $12k. There is a lot of profit made in NZ fleecing poor homeowners by installing tiny undersized arrays.
And where I've checked on the North Island, we had the darkest January and April since 2007/8. So record low light.
You sound like someone who makes money installing?
These days I run on the house 300 watts of PV, and 72 watts of micro-hydro (started with 50 watts). I run my workshop on another 300 watt setup. I have one woodworking appliance which needs the generator (to start, not to run but you can't run what you can't start) otherwise I never use it. Passive solar house (Homestar 8).
And I've been 20 years off grid now - it's no chore.
Undersized? By whose judgement call?
Obviously it is all possible to run on less. Your house is atypical. For the typical residential house on 10,000kWh per annum, a 6.5kW solar array will often provide 8,000kWh, and in conjunction with a good power co can essentially elimimate power bills.
There are some people in Africa who run on a 20w solar panel for a bit of LED lighting. To them, your setup would seem extravagant. 600W? Amazing.
Got me there anyway, I install, for money, but my only customer is the grid. It's telling that our grount mount is installed at 15% of the cost of roof mount solar. Lots of fleecing and undersized systems are installed here because the customers don't understand what they're buying.
And 3kw is undersized. Can't even run a kettle most daylight hours. How do you boil your water and cook PDK?
I planted a forest for that reason, 30 years ago. Solar energy, direct, is firewood. And minus a lot of tech, chainsaw aside. I also run low-tech solar H/W direct, for showering etc over the summer months. Built a solar cooker too. Energy - that's what it is all about. And will increasingly be about. Heat from PV is OK,but heat from batteries is nuts.
I'd come across such comments only from installers :)
We have solar panels. Modest 8 panel set up plus solar hot water heating. Two of us in a large house. Without further work most of our solar generation would be sold back at peanuts rates. Two initiatives are very helpful
1 We sell surplus power to our family and others at a rate that we agree ourselves. Twice what the power company pay us.
2 We have a solar diverter for the solar electricity. This means that any surplus (and no more than the surplus) generation is diverted into hot water heating. This is particularly useful in winter. The solar water heating pretty much deals with the summer. In winter it is configured to preheat the cold water at the bottom of the tank and any surplus electricity brings the water in the top half of the tank up to about 60 degrees. On the very odd occasions that all that is not enough, electric heating from the mains kicks in for an hour or so in the evening and again before we wake up.
We use at least half of our own power and get a far better income for the surplas
Thanks for the info.
I have been busy swapping out all the incandescent lights for LED where I can where they are not on a dimmer circuit. Yes you can get dimmable LED but they are both expensive and LED simply doesn't dim well compared to incandescent. LEDS by nature are either on or off. The lighting is over the top with probably 50% more lights than necessary. More interested in reliability than running costs really at the end of the day. People that have money don't really care, my Chiropractor is still on incandescent lights and I told him to switch like 5 years ago to LED and his lights are on all day every day. Its all relative to how long the lights are on as to the potential savings.
LEDs. Yes great, simple change.
Re solar.
We installed our solar water years before the panels. If we were doing it now we would just use panels and use the extra money to put in more panels. It would be far simpler and less complicated than what we have done. If doing it now, I would be looking for a solar diverter than could divert electricity to both hot water and an EV battery.
Never be tempted into household solar batteries. The net value of the energy that they store over their lifetime will never pay back their capital cost. Storing the energy as hot water is the most effective battery.
Until everyone catches on, 2nd hand L/A batteries are everywhere. They're used as backup for power-cuts, and are typically replaced every few years, having done no cycling. Get them for scrap value, or little more. So they aren't quite as deep a pond as when they were new? Get more.... I run the house on 4x92a/hr 2nd hand gels, and never look like pushing them.
Might be referring to the low user plan. I put my mum on that. Her 2Kw solar works quite well with a solar diverter. You really need some way to avoid heating water at peak rates (7am - 11am & 6pm- 11pm @ 37c/kwh). If I didn't have a solar diverter I'd use a timer on the hot water cylinder.
Stupid comment - what you said is precisely the definition of an expert. They "harp" about subjects that they've spent their entire careers researching or working in.
By your logic, GPs and specialist physicians do not provide sound medical advice since their entire career depends on harping about illnesses.
If you have concerns about the contents of the article, feel free to counter with evidence but don't discredit someone for being an expert in that domain FFS.
Some climate experts don't help their credibility every time they make a headline grabbing prediction that fails to materialize. Credibility further erodes when they claim this week is the hottest in a hundred thousand years, but only after they canceled records pre 1979 as "unreliable". I am not surprised there are a lot of sceptical people.
It all depends on which side of the ledger you are on - we're positioned as net economic losers in the climate battle with all our major export sectors being fairly large emitters, so we generally as a nation take a dim view of climate scientists.
The Danes on the other hand being highly invested in the wind turbine supply chain clearly have a more positive outlook to climate experts calling for more action.
so its really all about money
The exporting countries that should be in the firing line are the likes of China, India, Russia, Australia -and probably USA and Europe
But hey we are small so can be bullied into submission
And yes Nestle is one on the great greenwashers -right up there with Coke
Overnight 'lows" of 33 Degrees. and daytime highs of 47degrees. Seriously, eff that. I'd be heading for the airport and paying whatever it take to get a flight to somewhere cooler. And it'll be an expensive flight, all that thin hot air is going to push flight costs through the roof.
So I did that, and found headlines screaming "hottest temperature on record at 118 degrees". In the fine print is that is actually the "hottest 15th July on record". 118 degrees happened twice in the 1950s, and 1990 set the Phoenix record of 122 degrees.
So now I am even more sceptical of headlines.
I have been to Phoenix mid winter and it was t-shirt & shorts, just like our place was today 😎.
No - but you're giving away what you ARE thinking.
Your key giveaways are 'alarmist' and unsurprisingly'.
They are not alarmist. That's your cop-out.
Unsurprising to whom? To you. I see less and less scepticism, and the remnant are almost certainly classifiable in other sub-set ways too. Usually full of - or scared of losing - social status in the existing paradigm, so in denial of anything which threatens same. Problem is that as the gap between truth and their stance widens, their 'explanations' look more and more ludicrous, and they become a smaller group. Just like there aren't as many idiots bleating 'communist' as there were in the McCarthy witch-hunt days.
God save us from the arrogance of so-called "experts"! This one has qualifications in economics and political economy and government, which apparently makes him an expert on climate change according to Advisor.
One of his interests is to manipulate the public (via social media and mainstream media) into believing that mad experiments like solar geoengineering (spraying tens of millions of tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere) are perfectly rational:
https://geoengineering.environment.harvard.edu/gernot-wagner-moral-haza…
From the Union of Concerned Scientists:
"UCS strongly opposes any deployment of solar geoengineering. The reasoning: the technologies currently pose significant environmental, ethical, and geopolitical risks, challenges, and uncertainties."
Nat-ACT's environment policy is looking more out of touch with each passing day. The centre-right with their blinders on don't understand that our dairy exports attract an export premium mainly because of the "Clean Green NZ" brand.
How Nestlé's climate change decision could affect New Zealand farmers | Stuff.co.nz
Global corporate behemoths like Nestle are a problem. They'll greenwash wherever they can.
So what is the answer? Clean up and produce much less? Who's going to pay for NZs increasing trade deficit? Even the Greens are on board with mass immigration, meaning more people demanding a first world lifestyle.
All I am saying the change will be forced upon us eventually by our major export markets, whether we like it or not. I am not suggesting we pull the rug from underneath the farmers but milking more cows won't help rebalance our trade deficit, especially for a first-world lifestyle. Dairy and meat exports should buy us the time to diversify into other sectors with bipartisan support.
That idea however is completely off the table under a Nat-ACT govt who would rather stick their heads in the sand and remain fixated on housing, tourism and agriculture. ACT has even vowed to scrap both Callaghan Innovation and the R&D tax incentive - basically any business incentive that is of no benefit to retailers and farmers is goners.
I do agree with what you said, it's just the holy grail of "something else" has been the catch cry of the last 40 years. Ireland achieved it by offering big biz a tax free ride. I can't see another reason why anyone would set up in NZ, when you can set up close to your market.
Looking at the demand side of the economy would probably achieve better outcomes in a world of rising pollution and declining resources. Much easier to provide a better standard of living with less people, rather than pretending the magic money tree will eventually materialise, and living on credit until the fantasy arrives.
it's just the holy grail of "something else" has been the catch cry of the last 40 years
That's probably because it never got beyond a catch cry. We neither have the skilled workforce to deliver on higher value exports nor the infrastructure to support such sectors. You'd expect agility from a small, developed nation in the middle of nowhere, however we're terribly inefficient and deeply divided on how to address key issues such as education, migration, housing and tax.
3 months out we've got one side putting all their energy on social justice for minority interests and the other focusing solely on the welfare of property investors with the majority of NZ left out in the cold.
I can remember a lot of great little companies swallowed up and shifted offshore by the great capitalist gobbling game. There's no such thing as a successful indigenous company that won't be swallowed up and shifted offshore, if its physically possible to do so. The ones that can't be shifted simply remain cash cows for their foreign owners. It will always be thus with the current mindset! It's the NZ way!
Companies often get swallowed up because of the shallow capital and talent markets in NZ. We lag almost behind the entire OECD in % of high school grads going for higher education in technology and engineering.
There are a few successful companies trying to keep their productive operations within NZ (check out Zero Jet) and are struggling to find decent applicants for a handful of technical jobs. INZ ensures we don't fall short on cooks and waiters though.
Advisor,
Do not trust anything Nestle says. Work done by the NewClimate Institute and Carbon Market Watch have compiled a report on the carbon claims of 25 of the world's largest companies under the heading 'world's biggest firms failing over net zero claims'.
The report concluded that none of the 25 companies were judged to have achieved a high standard according to these benchmarks, while the 11 companies that ranked worst showing 'very low integrity' included E.ON and Nestle. Nestle has a long and unenviable record; remember the powdered baby milk scandal? If not, look it up.
A prime example of back the front thinking. Global heating is not a "fight", it's a response. A response to all the fighting previously done. Framing the whole planetary energy imbalance, caused by human burning, as a call to do more, to fight, is exactly the opposite of what's needed. The answer is LESS! Less of everything humans do to strip mine the life support systems of the planet!
Running around like headless economic chickens, while ignoring the physical causes of our self imposed existential threats guarantees of more of the same. Churning out endless solar panels and heat pumps while expecting a livable future, is like using a plastic bucket to bail out a sinking Titanic, while steering the ship at the next iceberg.
Not really related but very interesting, well researched link
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/16/world/world-demographics…
Sorry Interest website will not accept the address. I will try something else. Try searching this
New York Times How a Vast Demographic Shift Will Reshape the World
It is so striking that the economists and the community do not get it. This whole article seems predicated on the assumption that a large working age population is great and so increasing population is great. The human population is the greatest threat that the environment faces and if we do not reverse our growth there will be no civilization or economy.
I'll clarify for you.
Currently, the climate is changing. It has been incredibly stable for the last 30-40 years, which is unusual based on the records that we actually have. Previous to that, it was more volatile, particularly in the period 1900-1930. During that period there were many violent storms and other weather events including floods, droughts, and fires. This has happened many times over 1000s of years of heating and cooling.
The fact we are going into a more volatile period is being used as part of a scam trying to distribute wealth worldwide using new unreliable tech such as batteries/solar/wind.
Most of these 'experts' should be ignored and I for one will simply ignore them and go about life as normal. There is nothing, you, I, or any other expert or electric car or anything else can do to stop what is happening, as it is a natural cycle. You can try to stop me from using a weedeater, cooking with gas, and having a BBQ. All these suggestions are absolutely laughable.
We just need to accept and adapt to the period that is coming. That's not to say we should not keep the environment clean, we absolutely should, and there is some great progress being made.
Alas, most of the 'experts' are just crazy communists that would fine you for living and enforce silly rules on everyone so they can 'save' us. Again, best ignored.
Won't happen in your or my lifetime. You should at least know that one. In the meantime, fossil fuels will be replaced by hydrogen or some other energy source and you and your mates will still be standing by the side of the road for hours on end trying to charge up your EVs (that's if you haven't locked yourself underground before then).
Might happen in mine - I hope to have another 50+ years.
Hydrogen is not an energy source - it is an energy storage method. You need a energy source to produce the hydrogen in the first place, usually electricity or gas. Think of it more as a battery that's extremely hard to contain.
I do. I know all that. The are a few obstacles to overcome to allow its generation to be a lot less energy-intensive, and there is a lot of work going on and that obstacle along with the storage issue will be overcome. You really do climb up on that apple box when you think you know something don't you?
The energy required to do electrolysis is well documented.
And it's the smallest atom - good luck with the storage.
And it's still a vector, not a source. So it's just an inefficient way of using the prime-source energy. And we WON'T be doing inefficiencies where we're going.
And yes, I think I know something about energy.
current research and exploration is hinting that there may be enough for thousands of years as the earth continues to produce more
https://www.science.org/content/article/hidden-hydrogen-earth-may-hold-…
Irrefutable science tells us this is not natural. For instance, the isotopic analysis of where CO2 molecules are coming from (i.e. they can tell the increase in CO2 is related to burning fossil fuel) shows us its us. The keeling curve tells us that CO2 concentration is increasing in the atmosphere. The greenhouse effect (another irrefutable point of science) is increasing observably through increased temps.
These 3 things are well established, easily researched, repeatably verifiable facts from multiple sources. Calling the experts that study these things "crazy communists" reflects badly on you, not on their science.
And the bad weather period you describe from 1900s-1930s was about 100 years after we started pumping tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. The GHG concentrations started accelerating from about 1900.
there is a disconnect between the current temperature extremes and the steadily rising anthropogenic greenhouse gases - except for H2O where there has been a very significant increase in water vapour over the last couple of years on top of an increase over the longer term from the depletion of groundwater that we have been driving.
So I am looking for an answer as to the impact this is having as its my view that it is significant but need real science to continue to research and answer.
and as an aside if burning hydrogen is a future solution will this make atmospheric water vapour levels and therefore a greenhouse effect worse?
There is no disconnect. You just need to understand how complex systems work, like our biosphere. They level up in steps, with feedback systems which reinforce each other to create temporary stability (homeostasis). Increased water vapour is a result of warming, its important to not put the cart before the horse.
Bit of dodgy math there. So unwinding your simple math, and dividing 30000 by 400 (Which is the level on earth), we should have an average of about 5C, which we don't. I guess you are taking into account the relative distance from the sun in some way. and what about all the sulphuric acid in the atmosphere of Venus, where did that come into your calculations...or did you just make it all up and then make a bunch of assumptions like a climate scientist.
During the hottest planetary days on record, you can still look and see nothing?
The dodgy math came from the folk who said exponential growth went forever - climate alteration (global greenhousing) is merely one ramification of our frenzied overshoot. Knock that argument down an there are still 20 others.
But some folk need not to know.
Venus is to some extent a red herring, but nonetheless: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
Yes, I get you guys like to argue. The fact is that CO2 levels on Earth were 4000 ppm (10 x higher than now) in the distant past. Earth is still here, life went on. Just different life. Meteors crashed into the earth and killed many things (I bet that was not in a climate scientist's spreadsheet of assumptions and that sure did muddy the waters somewhat, and it changed the climate a lot, way outside of known projections at the time). The other little talked about fact is that the earth is getting closer to the sun every single day, just a little bit, and over time, the earth will continue to heat and will one day be sucked into the sun and simply won't exist. Arrrrgghhh. Whatever will you do? I'm panicking already. I think if I glue myself to the road in front of a tunnel everything will be fixed. Who will join me ?
Sounds like jeremy doesn't expect to be around that long, so not his problem. Maybe the kids will figure something out to prevent the collapse of modern civilization in a few decades - it certainly shouldn't be the focus of the generations that actually caused the problem.
Yeah yeah. Of course anything you guys make up is going to come true. Not long ago you lot were laughing at people fixing five year mortgages at 3% because the new normal and next year you would be getting paid to have a mortgage since rates were going negative. Strange how those predictions turned out… just keep making your predictions. They are hilarious.
Global warming? I'm sick of hearing about it.
While Russians wage war and burn down Ukraine city by city and the Chinese pour billions of tons of pollutants into the air, kiwis, who make up a minuscule percentage of the world population are implored to do without and tolerate extortionate taxes for the good of the planet.
The only reason my wife drives an EV is because I got a huge government discount on it.
A UK commentator Constantin Kisin, actually a comedian, made a relevant comment that if the UK sunk into the sea no one would notice as its contribution to GHG amounts to about 2% of the worlds (not sure if that figure is correct but its good enough). Apply that to NZ roughly on a population proportion to the UK and we are < 0.5%
Here Labour and specifically the Greens trying to screw the country economically into the ground.
It's like NZ's pathetic nuclear ship ban. No one actually cares except a few eccentric kiwis who think they'll stop WW3 or prevent NZ having a nuclear ship meltdown at Devonport. If WW3 started they wouldn't be able to get the US Navy here fast enough.
There's much more chance they'll be killed or injured by one of NZ's terrible drivers, or murdered by one of the criminals the government refuses to jail, but that kind of logic doesn't count. Not in parochial, isolated NZ.
As the NZ economy crumbles the solution from the government (except the PM) is to double-tax the 'rich' who provide employment, ideas and motivation.
Classic!
As the gubbermint mulls double-taxing the wealthy and successful, they've also been banning oil exploration, giving billlions to maoris, gouging the farmers, employing 15,000 more civil servants and wrecking tourism with extortionate petrol taxes.
No one should be in any doubt in which direction the NZ economy's headed.
Who remembers Aunty Helen telling us all that we should diversify from our traditional forms of income, and NZ should become a 'knowledge-based economy', some kind of global computer lounge. What happened to that socialist pipe dream?
Telegraph:
First it was Covid – now we’re being scared into submission over the weather
There’s no denying it’s hot in Europe, but it feels like sunshine is being weaponised in a bid to get us to adjust our ways to hit net zero
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