Replying to @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green

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.

Replying to @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green

"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?"

dothemath.ucsd.edu/2024/08/mm-

dothemath.ucsd.eduMM #11: Renewable Salvation? | Do the Math

Replying to @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green

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

Replying to @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green

Britain: 73 million wild birds wiped out since 1970s

Britain embraced the "Green" Revolution

"Britain, a country that has become one of the most nature depleted in the world. The industrialisation of agriculture, the repeated growing of monocultures such as cereal crops, pesticides, pollution and climate change are all decimating our wild bird population, and in some cases driving long-loved and well-known species towards extinction."

theguardian.com/environment/20

the GuardianListen to Britain’s dawn chorus of 1976: the dramatic loss of birdsong in 50 yearsGuardian recreates audio landscape of past filled by loud morning symphony before 73m wild birds were lost

Replying to @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green

@gerrymcgovern seems like the global electrification will need less mining than fossil fuels, even when adjusted for waste rock, according to this review
hannahritchie.substack.com/p/e

hannahritchie.substack.comThe low-carbon energy transition will need less mining than fossil fuels, even when adjusted for waste rockLow-carbon electricity will reduce material requirements, but moving to electric vehicles increases them

Replying to @ng@mastodon.eus

@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.

Replying to @ClintonAnderson@universeodon.com

@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

Replying to @gerrymcgovern@mastodon.green

@gerrymcgovern

Yeah, naaah... I'm not interested in Doomerism

We have solutions that are more than capable of working to reduce, indeed even help redress Anthropogenic Global Climate Change. It's going to take 25-35 generations, sure, probably even more because we've fucked up our planet so hard and so fast.

Oligarchs and Billionaires have created the lions share of everything wrong with this world. Ridding ourselves of them will be like crawling out from under the rubble to save ourselves.

We don't have to give up modern life.

We have to take down the Smaugs who are hording 99% of our wealth and consuming 95% of our resources.