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John Quiggin 
Dr. James Hansen, former Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s Earth Institute, joins Paul Beckwith in a discussion about his recent work, in the YouTube video titled Dr. James E. Hansen in Conversation with Paul Beckwith, duration 0:43:12.
This video was recorded on November 13th, 2023, and published on November 26th, 2023.
Not quite sure what to make of skimming war news from Ukraine. Doing a fast offensive without losing more than the enemy just seems difficult to do. If I was a Ukrainian General, I would also present a shopping list to the west to get just as much as possible, up to the point of being able to just beat Russia fast by sheer superiority in quality and quantity of equipment. But there is no real reason to think a front line at the border from 1991 once re conquered would be any more stable.
Which is to say, the particular dangers of Russia holding out at a disadvantage at the current front line vs lingering at the long border escapes me. Not that it matters in the current situation, as Russia just keeps throwing bodies and material into the offensive. It is hard to decipher if there is any real lack of supply/industrial built up in the west or if Russia is doing better than expected in that regard behind the gloom declared by people that measure success in square meters of destroyed cities possessed and still claim Russia’s army is a serious threat to NATO countries.
A friend of mine outsourced to ChatGPT the question of whether the provision of quantum vortex therapy should be determined by market forces. This is the response:
“Decisions about the provision of healthcare, including therapies like quantum vortex therapy, involve complex ethical considerations. Many argue that healthcare should prioritize public well-being over market forces to ensure equitable access and quality of care.”
Geoff Miell presents an interesting video on the latest research paper published on the impacts of climate change. Anyone can watch this so I will not go over the points raised during that video. Surfice to say that it was an interesting conversation that Dr. James E. Hansen had with Paul Beckwith.
I would just like to concentrate on something that Dr. Hansen raised at the end of the video. He said there was a need to get the message across and that this need was urgent. But he admitted that he was finding that this was hard.
The problems with the climate change debate in general, and the global warming warnings in particular, are that they are given at a too academically elite level of language usage. I have a university degree but find that following the climate scientific jargon difficult at times. That is despite my university level studies in both climatology and meteorology. If this debate is hard for me to follow, then it must also be difficult for anyone who has not studied in those fields.
There are two main areas that have to be clearly spelt out in plain language; without resorting to jargon and the climate speak of the experts in this field. The first area is the macro social benefits of doing something NOW and not waiting any longer. As the video pointed out all the early heads up on climate change were given over forty years ago. That is long enough for having any “public conversation” on the macro social costs of this emergency. The main points have been made: global warming will strip away the ice sheets and glaciers causing a rising of sea levels anything from one to five meters; temperature ranges will become extreme with heat waves more common; the ecosystem as we know it is in extreme danger; and all this will be irreversible. Anyone who has not heard all of that has been deliberately not listening. The macro social benefits of acting now are then fourfold: the sea level will only rise slightly saving the homes of coastal communities; heat waves will be minimised and deaths averted; the ecosystem will be given a chance to adapt slowly; and a climate catastrophe will be averted.
Unfortunately the second area is where all the heated controversies are born and breed today. This is the micro social benefits debate. We all know the human response NIMBY and its potential for political mischief making. With alternate and renewable energy essential to avert global warming, new power transmission grids must be established as well as many wind farms. Many communities do not want power grid of renewable energy lines running across, or even near, their properties. Other communities object to the establishment of wind farms. Now this is a highly charged public response to necessary measures. But little is done to persuaded those communities that they will gain great social benefits. The main social benefit will be a reliable power supply that will not cause blackouts. Having lived in some communities that strongly oppose BOTH wind farms and transmission lines, I get frustrated when heated public debates only focus on macro benefits. Very few proponents spend the time to explain the micro benefits. These matter greatly to particularly the families having to survive outside city areas. Rural and regional communities begin to feel like they are doing all the hard lifting; so that city dwellers can get all the social benefits without any social costs. By not explaining the micro social benefits of fewer extreme flood events, reliable and cheaper power supplies and the survival of local endangered species; the proponents of renewable energy leave the political field open to scaremongering.
A better understanding of ALL the micro social benefits of renewable energy may help get the action so desperately needed today. Long scientific debates won’t do the trick. A down to earth truth telling needs to be handled as a matter of urgency. Until there is wide based support for renewable energy and alternate energy infrastructure, protests like the tractor protest today will continue to win political support. Politicians only act when there are votes in it for their party. That means getting supporters of both sides of politics on board is crucial for climate action today. Only then will parliament and ministers do the right thing NOW before it’s too late.
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Solar ever cheaper
“Solar module prices may approach the threshold of $0.10/W by the end of 2024 or eventually in 2025, according to Tim Buckley, director of Australia-based think tank Climate Energy Finance.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/11/23/solar-module-prices-may-reach-0-10-w-by-end-2024/
That’s only a prediction by one expert, and predictions are cheap. But this is hard news from China:
“CHN Energy has acquired 10 GW of solar modules at $0.15/W in its most recent solar module procurement round. The state-owned company says it bought 3.21 GW of panels from Longi, 740 MW from Tongwei, 2.49 GW from Astronergy, and 3.56 GW from JinkoSolar.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/11/28/chinese-pv-industry-brief-chn-energy-buys-10-gw-of-solar-modules-at-0-15-w/
These companies are respectively ranked 2nd, 8th, 7th, and 1st in a trade list of PV module suppliers in H1 2023. https://www.solarbeglobal.com/top-20-solar-pv-module-suppliers-revealed-for-h1-2023/ They all shipped over 10 GW of modules in the period. These are not second-tier companies forced to sell at distressed prices as they are squeezed by the big guys, but the ones doing the squeezing. During the pandemic years, prices stayed more or less flat around 20c per watt. We are now seeing a big correction. Buckley thinks it isn’t over. I see no reason to doubt him.
Hix: “But there is no real reason to think a front line at the border from 1991 once reconquered would be any more stable.”
Retreat to 1991-2013 borders would spell the end to Putin and his shallow Bonapartist kleptocracy. The door would be at least ajar to negotiating a true peace with a successor regime that would not own the defeat (think France in 1872). Not enough thought is being given to this. Astonishingly. the British War Office organised seminars in Cambridge from early 1941 on the governance of liberated territories – before Barbarossa, Pearl Harbor and Moscow.
The previous two anonymi (anonymoi?) are me, James Wimberley. But I wish I’d thought of quantum vortex therapy, or better still, marketed it.
Since I’m at the keyboard, a nice example of herd ignorance in the mass media. There’s an interesting but unconfirmed report from Kyiv that Ukrainian saboteurs have set fire to an oil train in the 15km Severomuysky tunnel on the Baikal-Amur Main Line (BAM) in Siberia, and presumably blocked the lined for some time. Quite a few mainstream media and the usually reliable ISW think repeat the source’s gloss this cuts the Russian rail link to China.
This is nonsense. Look at a rail map. The point of this very expensive Soviet investment is that it runs several hundred km *north* of the old Trans-Siberian route close to the north bank of the Amur river, the border with China. This was seen by the old USSR as a security vulnerability. The spur rail lines from the Trans-Sib to China run SE through Mongolia and Manchuria. It’s interesting that Ukraine does not seem to have attacked these, inside Russia of course. Perhaps as a warning to China not to send Putin munitions? The distances involved are so great that systematic protection of these lines is impossible, though the tunnel was presumably guarded, along with major bridges and stations. But there are hundreds of smaller bridges and culverts to be blown up, and electric substations. It would be a shame, Mr Chairman Xi, if anything happened to them.
My magic powers can predict the content of the next blog entry. It will be about the IEA and nuclear power.
At least Bonaparte introduced the world, his conquered world, the concepts of liberty, fraternity and equality as well as elements from the code Napoleon.
Putin has nothing to offer.