Gerry McGovern

Free electricity anyone!? Move to Australia and they'll give you free electricity because of those amazing solar machines!

Australia must be so green, clean and renewable, right?

Australian coal production rebounds as exports surge amid global demand
https://thecoalhub.com/report-presentation/australian-coal-production-rebounds-as-exports-surge-amid-global-demand

Australia’s coalmine emissions are increasing. Is this how a major policy to cut climate pollution is meant to work?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/apr/19/australia-emissions-increasing-coalmines-climate-policy-analysis

@ClintonAnderson
We have never burned more fossil fuels. They are at records levels and will continue at these levels as long as it is profitable to mine them. We live in a Growth Death Cult.

@ng

@ng For starters, there is no energy transition. Everything (coal, oil, wind) is at record levels.

Mining for wind and solar demands an order of magnitude more metals than for other fossil fuels.

1 GW wind requires 300 tons of rare earths = 600,000 tons of often radioactive waste.

These wind and solar machines are massively, massively material intense and need to be replaced every 20-30 years.

"In terms of concrete, steel, copper, glass, and aluminum (not counting the fossil fuel mass itself), renewable energy requires an order-of-magnitude more material per unit of electrical energy delivered than does fossil fuel combustion. This translates to never-ending mining, manufacturing, pollution, and all the associated ecological costs. It’s not a build-it-once-and-done game.
Renewable energy is therefore not actually renewable."

"It’s evident, right?"

https://dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/08/mm-11-renewable-salvation/

@ClintonAnderson

Decades of research suggests that hydropower has a far greater climate impact than once thought. Now a growing chorus of scientists want to change the conversation about it.

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14072023/todays-climate-hydropower-methane-clean-energy/

“Over the past 20 years, international studies of dams and their reservoirs confirmed in dozens of peer-reviewed research papers that dams and reservoirs are net contributors to climate change.”
https://www.patagonia.com/stories/what-is-the-future-of-dams-in-a-hot-chaotic-world/story-135155.html

@HeavenlyPossum

@ClintonAnderson
Actually, no. I've seen studies that when the true and total costs of hydro were accounted for, it had just as big an impact as fossil fuels.

Hydro doesn't just devastate where the dam is built. It destroys river systems and related ecosystems. It destroys marine systems that the rivers used to flow into. etc etc. And it's a methane bomb as the vegetation that was covered by the dam rots

@HeavenlyPossum

@ClintonAnderson
The only possible solution is a massive reduction in energy consumption, and a zero waste society, and that will be very painful.

And the chances of it happening voluntarily are so low because we are trapped in a Growth Death Cult.

But Mother Nature will degrow us.

@ClintonAnderson
Hydro is absolutely environmentally devastating. Hydro does multiple--multiple--environmental harms. It's just these harms are hidden in remote areas and where Indigenous live. Hydro is absolutely horrible for nature--and is a methane bomb factory

@HeavenlyPossum

@ClintonAnderson
This is CO2 tunnel vision syndrome.

In the 1970s, scientists agreed there were "two legs" to climate change:
CO2
Land use change

Yes, CO2 is hugely damaging. So is increased water vapor. So is methane. So is plastic pollution, chemical overload, nitrogen and phosphorous overload, herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, ocean acidification, global soil collapse, global drought, e-waste, mining waste ...

CO2 is the ace of spades in a 52 card deck of civilizational destruction

@ClintonAnderson

Oh yeah? The day we're selling batteries as an environmental solution is the day we are surely doomed.

"Renewable" batteries:
Lithium
Nickel
Cobalt
PFAS forever chemicals
Volatile electrolytes

"Lithium-based batteries pose several health risks throughout their life cycle"

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092134492600114X

Lions: 90% decline in Ghana in 40 years

Forest elephants: 60% decline in 12 years

Leatherback turtles: 95% decline in 20 years

Earthworms: 33% decline in UK in 20 years

Rural hedgehog: 75% collapse since 2000

Amazon pink river dolphins: 60% wiped out in 50 years

Greater sage-grouse: 80% decline in U.S. since 1965

More than one third of tree species face extinction

Who would have thought?

I mean who would have thought that the way to save the environment is to flood the world with giant batteries.

Batteries are among the most toxic, environment-destroying products in human history.

How have we come to this state where batteries have become clean and green and renewable?

The Growth Death Cult.

The bottom line is that when it comes to saving our lifestyles or saving the environment, we choose to save our lifestyles, save capitalism.

AI tech bros are shouting and screaming with glee out as loud as they possibly can what used to be the quiet piece that was whispered

"A new report from Sinolink Securities argues that the true revenue ceiling for the AI industry lies not in the traditional software market, but in the vast pool of human wages that AI can reprice. The firm estimates that out of $10.83 trillion in total U.S. annual wages, $1.45 trillion is already exposed to AI disruption."

https://finance.biggo.com/news/7c863776-85c9-4cbc-8de8-2d0d4bf59a06

The more energy we consume, the more we accelerate the Sixth Mass Extinction.

As Tom Murphy has said, for Nature, the difference between "renewable" energy and fossil fuel energy is the difference between decapitation or bullet through the head.

We do not face an energy production production.

We do face an energy consumption crisis.

We consume vastly too much and produce vastly too much toxic waste.

We must face up to what the real problems are.

Canada has lost over 60% of its flying insects since the 1970s, leaving tree swallows smaller and less successful at breeding
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/science/canada-has-lost-over-60-of-its-flying-insects-since-the-1970s-leaving-tree-swallows-smaller-and-less-successful-at-breeding-scientists-found/articleshow/132176920.cms

Birds: 60% decline in Ireland since 1970s
Wild salmon: 89% decline in Ireland since 1970s
Butterflies: 80% decline in Ireland since 1970s
Butterflies: USA lost 20% of butterflies between 2005 and 2025
Flying insects: 75% decline in Germany in 27 years

Meta data center water discharges suspended after contaminating the city's reclamation water supply with bacterium — system offline for months for cleaning, closed-loop cooling system purge spread rare metal-resistant bacteria in Cheyenne’s water system

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/data-centers/cheyenne-suspends-data-center-fill-and-flush-and-closed-loop-discharges-after-meta-contractor-contaminated-its-reuse-water-system

These closed-loop systems are the answer to everything

“Through its operation and maintenance of the Data Center, Defendant has emitted, and continues to emit, unreasonable and excessive noise onto Plaintiffs’ properties, thereby causing property damages through private nuisance and negligence,” the lawsuit states.

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/wisconsin-microsoft-data-center-lawsuit-noise-b3008643.html

More than half of South Dakota is experiencing drought.

They're planning for a huge data center there anyway

The question now is not whether data centers are coming. It is who pays.

The environment, of course!