#Future of energy Conference 2024

[counselor-nico]

Gethsemane Enertech ERP Solution: Revolutionizing Energy Efficiency through AI, IoT & Data Science

Overview of Energy Efficiency in Ghana and Africa Energy efficiency is increasingly becoming a focal point in the energy sector, particularly in developing regions like Ghana and Africa, where energy demand is growing rapidly due to economic expansion and population growth. In these regions, energy efficiency is not just about reducing costs but also about enhancing energy security, reducing…

[reasonsforhope]

Holy crap, I didn't think Biden would be able to get the Climate Corps established without Congress. This is SUCH fantastic news.

--

"After being thwarted by Congress, President Joe Biden will use his executive authority to create a New Deal-style American Climate Corps that will serve as a major green jobs training program.

In an announcement Wednesday, the White House said the program will employ more than 20,000 young adults who will build trails, plant trees, help install solar panels and do other work to boost conservation and help prevent catastrophic wildfires.

The climate corps had been proposed in early versions of the sweeping climate law approved last year but was jettisoned amid strong opposition from Republicans and concerns about cost.

Democrats and environmental advocacy groups never gave up on the plan and pushed Biden in recent weeks to issue an executive order authorizing what the White House now calls the American Climate Corps.

“After years of demonstrating and fighting for a Climate Corps, we turned a generational rallying cry into a real jobs program that will put a new generation to work stopping the climate crisis,” said Varshini Prakash, executive director of the Sunrise Movement, an environmental group that has led the push for a climate corps.

With the new corps “and the historic climate investments won by our broader movement, the path towards a Green New Deal is beginning to become visible,” Prakash said...

...Environmental activists hailed the new jobs program, which is modeled after the Civilian Conservation Corps, created in the 1930s by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, as part of the New Deal...

Lawmakers Weigh In

More than 50 Democratic lawmakers, including Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, had also encouraged Biden to create a climate corps, saying in a letter on Monday that “the climate crisis demands a whole-of-government response at an unprecedented scale.”

The lawmakers cited deadly heat waves in the Southwest and across the nation, as well as dangerous floods in New England and devastating wildfires on the Hawaiian island of Maui, among recent examples of climate-related disasters.

Democrats called creation of the climate corps “historic” and the first step toward fulfilling the vision of the Green New Deal.

“Today President Biden listened to the (environmental) movement, and he delivered with an American Climate Corps,” a beaming Markey said at a celebratory news conference outside the Capitol.

“We are starting to turn the green dream into a green reality,” added Ocasio-Cortez, who co-sponsored the Green New Deal legislation with Markey four years ago.

“You all are changing the world,” she told young activists.

Program Details and Grant Deadlines

The initiative will provide job training and service opportunities to work on a wide range of projects, including restoring coastal wetlands to protect communities from storm surges and flooding; clean energy projects such as wind and solar power; managing forests to prevent catastrophic wildfires; and energy efficient solutions to cut energy bills for consumers, the White House said.

Creation of the climate corps comes as the Environmental Protection Agency launches a $4.6 billion grant competition for states, municipalities and tribes to cut climate pollution and advance environmental justice. The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants are funded by the 2022 climate law and are intended to drive community-driven solutions to slow climate change.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan said the grants will help “communities so they can chart their own paths toward the clean energy future.”

The deadline for states and municipalities to apply is April 1, with grants expected in late 2024. Tribes and territories must apply by May 1, with grants expected by early 2025."

-via Boston.com, September 21, 2023

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson/Political Cartoonist :: @Nick_Anderson_

Spreading like...

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 13, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Jan 14, 2025

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[mariacallous]

In 2025, we will see a fundamental transformation in the language of climate politics. We’re going to hear a lot less about “reducing emissions” from scientists and policymakers and a lot more about “phasing out fossil fuels” or “ending coal, oil, and methane gas.” This is a good thing. Although it is scientifically accurate, the phrase “reducing emissions” is too easily used for greenwashing by the fossil-energy industry and its advocates. The expression “ending coal, oil, and methane gas,” on the other hand, keeps the focus on the action that will do most to resolve the climate crisis.

This discourse shift has been initiated by the latest report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The world’s climate scientists say that already existing fossil-energy infrastructure is projected to emit the total carbon budget for halting global heating at 2 degrees Celsius over preindustrial temperatures. This statement means two things. It means that the world cannot develop any more coal, oil, or gas, if we want our planet to remain relatively livable. And it means that even some already developed fossil-fuel deposits will need to be retired before the end of their lifetime, since we need to leave space in the carbon budget for essential activities like agriculture.

The international community has already integrated this new science into its global climate governance. The 28th Conference of the Parties—the annual conference of the world’s nations party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—called for every country to contribute to “transitioning away from fossil fuels.” Never before in the history of international climate negotiations had the main cause of global heating been clearly named and specifically targeted. The United Nations itself now calls for the phaseout of coal, oil, and methane gas.

This new climate language will become mainstream in 2025. In her policy plans for her second term aspPresident of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen pledged not to work to lower EU emissions, but to “continue to bring down energy prices by moving further away from fossil fuels.” The new UK government promised in its manifesto that it will withhold licenses for new coal and for oil exploration—and states outright that it will “ban fracking for good.” And in France, Macron has explicitly vowed to end fossil-fuel use entirely.

Climate politics in the US will also evolve in the wake of Donald Trump’s reelection for president. Republicans will continue to embrace a “drill, baby, drill” climate agenda, denying the danger or sometimes even the reality of climate change while advocating for expanding domestic crude and methane-gas production. They may try to greenwash their policies by claiming they embrace an “all of the above” energy strategy, but this messaging will have limited effects. Due to political polarization the association of Trump with coal, oil, and gas will raise Democratic support for phasing out fossil fuels. Before the 2024 election, 59 percent of Democrats said climate change should be the Federal government’s top priority, but only 48 percent said they supported a phaseout. In 2025 majorities of Democrats will begin to support fossil-fuel phaseout, especially if climate advocates revive science-based climate messaging, continue to emphasize that clean-energy deployment is job creation, and frame choosing to phase out fossil fuels as a form of freedom that upholds our right to a livable future.

Given that Democrats won many down-ballot races, and cities and states are still pledging to pass climate policies, this shift in the Democratic majority will keep the US on the map in international climate negotiations, whether or not Trump withdraws the US from the Paris Agreement, creating new local alliances with the UK, the EU, and global south nations calling for international fossil-fuel phaseout targets. This bloc can counter the power of petrostates in international climate negotiations. At the very least, the mainstreaming of the language of fossil-fuel phaseout will help undermine the greenwashing strategy of current oil and gas company PR, which falsely advertises industry as pursuing technologies at scale to help “reduce emissions” even as they continue their upstream investments.

Of course the petrostates, along with India and China, will push back against the rhetoric of fossil fuel phaseout. But India can be helped to turn away from its domestic coal stores by clean-energy financing at close to cost along with the international aid and technology transfers already pledged at previous climate conferences. And although its rhetoric may not align with that of the West, China should not be imagined as opposed to climate action. China has enacted the most comprehensive climate policy on the planet, in service of its goal to peak emissions by 2030 and achieve net zero emissions by 2060. If their climate messaging remains focused on “emissions,” in light of their plan to keep using fossil fuels past 2030, they are preparing for next decade’s pivot away from fossil fuels by building out clean energy at a truly extraordinary rate.

In 2025 climate discourse will recenter on the message that halting global heating requires the phaseout of coal, oil, and gas. This new consensus will shift the politics of climate change and help motivate an urgent sprint to a clean-energy, ecologically integrated economy—the only economy that ensures a livable future.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from RMI:

1. Batteries Become Everybody’s Best Friend

Battery prices continue to drop and their capacity continues to rise. The cost of electric vehicle (EV) batteries are now about 60 percent what they were just five years ago. And around the world, batteries have become key components in solar-plus-storage microgrids, giving people access to reliable power and saving the day for communities this past hurricane season.

2. Americans Get Cheaper (and Cleaner) Energy

State public utility commissions and rural electric co-operatives around the country are taking steps to deliver better service for their customers that also lowers their rates. At the same time, real momentum is building to prevent vertically integrated utilities from preferencing their coal assets when there are cleaner and cheaper alternatives available.

3. A Sustainable Shipping Future Gets Closer

More than 50 leaders across the marine shipping value chain — from e-fuel producers to vessel and cargo owners, to ports and equipment manufacturers — signed a Call to Action at the UN climate change conference (COP29) to accelerate the adoption of zero-emission fuels. The joint statement calls for faster and bolder action to increase the use of zero and near-zero emissions fuel, investment in zero-emissions vessels, and global development of green hydrogen infrastructure, leaving no country behind.

4. Corporations Fly Cleaner

In April, 20 corporations, including Netflix, JPMorgan Chase, Autodesk, and more, committed to purchase about 50 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), avoiding 500,000 tons of CO2 emissions — equivalent to the emissions of 3,000 fully loaded passenger flights from New York City to London. SAF is made with renewable or waste feedstocks and can be used in today’s aircraft without investments to upgrade existing fleets and infrastructure.

5. More and More Places Go From Coal to Clean

Around the world, coal-fired power plants are closing down as communities switch to clean energy. From Chile to the Philippines to Minnesota coal-to-clean projects are creating new jobs, improving local economic development, and generating clean electricity. In September, Britain became the first G7 nation to stop generating electricity from coal — it’s turning its last coal-fired power plant into a low-carbon energy hub. And in Indonesia, the president vowed to retire all coal plants within 15 years and install 75 gigawatts of renewable energy.

6. Methane Becomes More Visible, and Easier to Mitigate

Methane — a super-potent greenhouse gas — got much easier to track thanks to the launch of new methane tracking satellites over the past year. In March, the Environmental Defense Fund launched MethaneSAT, the first for a non-governmental organization, and the Carbon Mapper Coalition soon followed with the launch of Tanager-1. By scanning the planet many times each day and identifying major methane leaks from orbit, these new satellites will put pressure on big emitters to clean up.

7. EVs Speed By Historic Milestones

This past year was the first time any country had more fully electric cars than gas-powered cars on the roads. It’s no surprise that this happened in Norway where electric cars now make up more than 90 percent of new vehicle sales. And in October, the United States hit a milestone, with over 200,000 electric vehicle charging ports installed nationwide.

8. Consumers Continue to Shift to Energy-Efficient Heat Pumps for Heating and Cooling

Heat pumps have outsold gas furnaces consistently since 2021. And while shipments of heating and cooling equipment fell worldwide in 2023, likely due to broad economic headwinds, heat pumps held on to their market share through. And over the past 12 months, heat pumps outsold conventional furnaces by 27 percent. Shipments are expected to continue increasing as states roll out home efficiency and appliance rebate programs already funded by the Inflation Reduction Act – worth up to $10,000 per household in new incentives for heat pump installations. Link: Tracking the Heat Pump & Water Heater Market in the United States – RMI

9. China Reaches Its Renewable Energy Goal, Six Years Early

China added so much renewable energy capacity this year, that by July it had surpassed its goal of having 1,200 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy installed by 2030. Through September 2024, China installed some 161 GW of new solar capacity and 39 GW of new wind power, according to China’s National Energy Administration (NEA). China is deploying more solar, wind, and EVs than any other country, including the United States, which is — by comparison — projected to deploy a record 50 GW of solar modules by the end of 2024.

10. De-carbonizing Heavy Industry

For steel, cement, chemicals and other heavy industries, low-carbon technologies and climate-friendly solutions are not only increasingly available but growing more affordable. To speed this process, Third Derivative, RMI’s climate tech accelerator, launched the Industrial Innovation Cohorts to accelerate the decarbonization of steel, cement, and chemicals. Also on the rise: clean hydrogen hubs — powered by renewable energy — designed to supply green hydrogen to chemical, steel, and other heavy industries to help them shift to low-carbon production processes.

[misfitwashere]

January 13, 2025 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JAN 14

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

—

[hldailyupdate]

“It’s an absolute honour, something that’s really hard to put into words. Every live show feels really special and I feel really lucky to be able to be in those situations. But as I said there’s a certain poetry and romance to coming to Mexico. I feel like a long time, I just know when I’m gonna get out with the crowd, every single performance I’ve ever had here— there’s just such an incredible infectious energy in the room. I’m really, really excited to bring the Faith in the Future tour and hopefully you guys like it as well, anyone who’s coming.”

-Louis on performing to such big crowds during his FITF tour stops in Mexico.

Tecate Pa’l Norte Press Conference. (30 March 2024)

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

Researchers seek to make energy and carbon storage feasible on a large scale in Brazil

The GeoStorage Project includes the development of solutions such as a hydrogen super battery, energy storage with compressed air, and blue hydrogen in the pre-salt layer.

USP’s Research Center for Greenhouse Gas Innovation (RCGI) has just announced the creation of GeoStorage, a hub(integrated research unit) composed by a series of projects aimed at positioning Brazil as a global leader in large-scale energy and carbon storage systems. The studies are aimed at improving the use and development of new energy sources in the Country, as well as reducing emissions of pollutants such as carbon dioxide (CO₂). This new initiative expands RCGI’s portfolio, which is dedicated to developing crucial technologies for the energy transition, further strengthening the center’s role in energy innovation and sustainability.

“Brazil has extraordinary potential to stand out in this sector, aligning itself with the main international initiatives. GeoStorage’s technologies are essential to the energy transition, and the growing interest of global companies in applying them reinforces the hub’s relevance in the energy scenario,” says RCGI’s CEO and scientific director, Julio Meneghini. “With the demand for clean hydrogen projected for 2050 and carbon capture estimated to reach 115 gigatons by 2060, the impact of these technologies is clear and transformative for the future of sustainable energy,” adds Pedro Vassalo Maia da Costa, director of thehub and researcher at USP’s School of Engineering (Poli).

GeoStorage was officially launched during the International Conference on Energy Transition (ETRI 2024), held by the RCGI in São Paulo from November 5 to 7. The new research hub consolidates RCGI’s knowledge and experience in developing innovative technologies for the geological storage of carbon and hydrogen in Brazil, standing out with the patent for the technology of gravitational separation of methane and CO₂ in salt caverns, winner of the ANP Technological Innovation Award in 2019.

The initiative also includes renowned experts, such as Professor Colombo Tassinari, from USP’s Institute of Energy and Environment (IEE), who received the ANP Award for Scientific Personality in 2023, presented by the National Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels Agency (ANP), and Nathália Weber, a non-profit organization that supports the development of carbon capture and storage projects in Brazil. In addition, GeoStorage is anchored in a robust base of scientific studies validated by publications and presentations at international conferences.

Continue reading.

[felassan]

Electronic Arts Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call (August 1st)

This happened today and Dragon Age was mentioned in the opening Prepared Remarks section of the call (emphasis mine):

"To do more extraordinary things for our people, players and communities, our teams are building the strongest pipeline in the history of EA to drive multi-year growth. Over the next few years, we will launch numerous experiences that grow and deepen the fandom of our legendary IP. Our multi-year targeted investments toward our biggest opportunities include global titles like blockbuster storytelling from Dragon Age, incredible skateboarding gameplay and social connection from skate, and a revival of EA SPORTS College Football that celebrates the action, culture and tradition of the sport like never before. We’re also hard at work on a new experience from The Sims that will transform what players can do with creativity, a sprawling action adventure Iron Man game, a reimagination of Battlefield as a truly connected ecosystem, and the expansion of the Apex Legends universe across platforms, geographies, and modalities of play. The most recent reveal of our Black Panther project — set in a massive, explorable universe — marks the latest chapter in EA’s collaboration with The Walt Disney Company and the Marvel Games team."

[source and full Prepared Remarks transcript]

Dragon Age was then mentioned during the Q&A section of the call (emphasis mine):

Q: "Last quarter it was noted that players were concentrating their spend on major franchises. Just wanted to see first if there was any update to that? And then, Andrew, in your commentary you highlighted a goal for Apex as an experience across platforms, I'm assuming that includes mobile as well, so can you speak to how you envision potentially relaunching that title on phones and how the approach could differ to the prior game? Thank you." A: "Yeah, so let me touch on the first part. I do think we continue to see big titles getting bigger, and live services getting bigger, and certainly as a company with a broad portfolio of large-scale IP and large-scale live services, we believe that we will be long-term beneficiaries of that trend. You know, that doesn't mean that we won't build smaller titles over the course of time. There are these incredible stories that we believe should be told in the context of entertainment. We are focusing our investment so that we can build a cost-base around those that's appropriate, but we're also really getting behind our biggest opportunities, and as we've talked about, our strategy and building these experiences that entertain massive online communities. Our expectation is that will be a large scale growth driver for us. But, you know, when thought about the right way, games like, you know, Dragon Age, and Jedi, can tell truly blockbuster stories and really break into that top category of games. I think what we see today is the mid-tier and lower games that, you know, maybe did pretty well through Covid because people had a lot of spare time - they're the part of the industry that really aren't doing and performing as well. And as we think about our future, you should expect that we'll continue to focus our investments and our energy and our resources against these big opportunities because we do believe that is where the industry is trending."

[source: call audio webcast]

There were no further mentions of Dragon Age, Mass Effect or BioWare during the call.

Here is the latest Existing Live Services & FY24 Title Slate (announced titles), from the call's supporting documents -

[source]

The next EA earnings conference call - for Q2 2024 - is on November 1st 2023 at 2pm PT.

[source]

lastly, when the full transcript of this call becomes available I'll post the link/add it to this post. ^^

Edit: Here is a transcript of the full call.

[sunshinesmebdy]

The Moon in Gemini: A Chatty Moon and its Impact on Business and Finance (May 9, 2024)

Greetings, astrology enthusiasts and business minds! Today, we delve into the fascinating dance of the Moon in Gemini and its potential influence on your financial ventures and professional endeavors.

The Moon, in astrology, represents our emotions, intuition, and communication style. When it waltzes into the realm of Gemini, the sign of the twins and the communicator, get ready for a quick-witted and curious lunar phase.

Let’s explore four key astrological aspects the Moon in Gemini forms, and how they might affect your business and financial landscape:

Moon in Gemini Sextile Mars in Aries (Boost of Initiative):

This energetic aspect fuels your drive to get things done. You might feel a surge of creativity and a strong urge to act on your ideas. It’s a prime time for brainstorming sessions, sales pitches, and taking calculated risks. However, the fire of Mars in Aries can be impulsive. Channel this energy productively by planning your actions before diving in.

Business Tip: Organize a team brainstorming session to generate innovative marketing ideas.

Financial Tip: Research new investment opportunities, but carefully analyze risks before committing.

Moon in Gemini Trine Pluto in Aquarius (Transformation Through Communication):

This powerful trine aspect facilitates transformative conversations and collaborations. It’s a fantastic time to network with influential people in your field. Discussions about revolutionary ideas or disruptive technologies could lead to breakthrough partnerships or funding opportunities.

Business Tip: Attend industry conferences or workshops to connect with like-minded individuals.

Financial Tip: Consider unconventional investment strategies, but ensure they align with your long-term goals.

Moon in Gemini Square Saturn in Pisces (Facing Doubts and Delays):

This challenging aspect can bring up feelings of self-doubt or anxieties about the future. You might encounter unexpected delays or roadblocks in your business ventures. However, this is a time for resilience and strategic planning. Use the Moon’s analytical nature in Gemini to address concerns head-on and develop a solid backup plan.

Business Tip: Expect communication breakdowns or delays in projects. Double-check deadlines and maintain clear communication with your team.

Financial Tip: Reassess your budget and identify areas for cost-cutting. Prepare for unexpected financial hurdles.

Overall, the Moon in Gemini presents a dynamic and communication-driven period for business and finance. Embrace the opportunity to connect, explore new ideas, and navigate challenges with a strategic mind. Remember, clear communication, adaptability, and a dash of caution will be your allies during this lunar phase.

Stay tuned for future articles where we delve deeper into the fascinating world of astrology and its influence on your business success!

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson

January 13, 2025

Jan 14

The incoming Trump administration is working to put its agenda into place.

Although experts on the National Security Council usually carry over from one administration to the next, Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller of the Associated Press today reported that incoming officials for the Trump administration are interviewing career senior officials on the National Security Council about their political contributions, how they voted in 2024, and whether they are loyal to Trump. Most of them are on loan from the State Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Central Intelligence Agency and, understanding that they are about to be fired, have packed up their desks to head back to their home agencies.

(NOTE: THIS IS A VIOLATION OF THE HATCH ACT - THOSE GRILLED BY TRUMP'S TEAM SHOULD FILE A CLASS ACTION SUIT AGAINST THEM!!)

The National Security Council is the main forum for the president to hash out decisions in national security and foreign policy, and the people on it are picked for their expertise. But Trump’s expected pick to become his national security advisor—his primary advisor on all national security issues—Representative Mike Waltz (R-FL) told right-wing Breitbart News that he wants to staff the NSC with people who are “100 percent aligned with the president’s agenda.”

Ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Representative Gerry Connolly (D-VA) warned that the loyalty purge “threatens our national security and our ability to respond quickly and effectively to the ongoing and very real global threats in a dangerous world.”

But during Trump’s first term, it was Alexander Vindman, who was detailed to the NSC, and his twin Eugene Vindman, who was serving the NSC as an ethics lawyer, who reported concerns about Trump’s July 2019 call to Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to their superiors. This launched the investigation that became Trump’s first impeachment, and Trump appears anxious to make sure future NSC members will be fiercely loyal to him.

With extraordinarily slim majorities in the House and Senate, Republicans are talking about pushing through their entire agenda through Congress as a single bill in the process known as budget reconciliation. Budget reconciliation, which deals with matters related to spending, revenue, and the debt limit, is one of the few things that cannot be filibustered, meaning that Republicans could get a reconciliation bill through the Senate with just 50 votes. If they can hold their conference together, they could get the package through despite Democratic opposition.

House speaker Mike Johnson and Republican leaders have said that the House intends to pass a reconciliation bill that covers border security, defense spending, the extension of Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, spending cuts to social welfare programs, energy deregulation, and an increase in the national debt limit.

But Li Zhou of Vox points out that it’s not quite as simple as it sounds to get everything at once, because budget reconciliation measures are not supposed to include anything that doesn’t relate to the budget, and the Senate parliamentarian will advise stripping those things out. In addition, the budget cuts Republicans are circulating include cuts to popular programs like Medicaid, the Affordable Care Act (more commonly known as Obamacare), the Inflation Reduction Act’s investment in combating climate change, and the supplemental nutrition programs formerly known as food stamps.

Still, a lot can be done under budget reconciliation. Democrats under Biden passed the 2021 American Rescue Plan and the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act under reconciliation, and Republicans under Trump passed the 2017 Trump tax cuts the same way.

A wrinkle in those plans is the Republicans’ hope to raise the national debt limit. As soon as they take control of Congress and the White House, Republicans will have to deal immediately with the treasury running up against the debt limit, a holdover from World War I that sets a limit on how much the country can borrow. 

Although he has complained bitterly about spending under Biden, Trump has demanded that Congress either raise or abandon the debt ceiling because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the tax cuts he wants to extend will add $4.6 trillion to the deficit over the next ten years, and cost estimates for his deportation plans range from $88 billion to $315 billion a year.

Republicans are backing away from adding a debt increase to the budget reconciliation package out of concern that members of the far-right Freedom Caucus will kill the entire bill if they do. Those members want no part of raising the national debt and have demanded $2 trillion in budget cuts before they will consider it. Tonight, Senate majority leader John Thune (R-SD) told Jordain Carney of Politico that Senate Republicans expect the debt limit to be stripped out of the budget reconciliation measure.

So Republicans are currently exploring the idea of leveraging aid to California for the deadly fires in order to get Democrats to sign on to raising the debt ceiling. Meredith Lee Hill of Politico reported that Trump met with a group of influential House Republicans over dinner Sunday night at Mar-a-Lago to discuss tying aid for the wildfires to raising the debt ceiling. Today, House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) confirmed to reporter Hill that this plan is under discussion.

Indeed, Republicans have been in the media suggesting that disaster aid to Democratic states should be tied to their adopting Republican policies. The Los Angeles fires have now claimed at least 24 lives. More than 15,000 firefighters are working to extinguish the wildfires, which have been driven by Santa Ana winds of up to 98 miles (158 km) an hour over ground scorched by high temperatures and low rainfall since last May, conditions caused by climate change.

On the Fox News Channel today, Representative Zach Nunn (R-IA) said: "We will certainly help those thousands of homes and families who have been devastated, but we also expect you to change bad behavior. We should look at the same for these blue states who have run away with a broken tax policy.... Those governors need to change their tune now.” Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) blamed Democrats for the fires and said of federal disaster relief: “I certainly wouldn't vote for anything unless we see a dramatic change in how they're gonna be handling these things in the future.”

Aside from the morality of demanding concessions for disaster aid after President Joe Biden responded with full and unconditional support for regions hit by Hurricane Helene (although Tennessee governor Bill Lee is still lying that Biden delayed aid to his state, when in fact he delayed in asking for it, as required by law), there is a financial problem with this argument. As economist Paul Krugman noted today in his Krugman Wonks Out, California “is literally subsidizing the rest of the United States, red states in particular, through the federal budget.”

In 2022, the most recent year for which information is available, California paid $83 billion more to the federal government than it got back. Washington state also subsidized the rest of the country, as did most of the Northeast. That money flowed to Republican-dominated states, which contributed far less to the federal government than they received in return.

Krugman noted that “if West Virginia were a country, it would in effect be receiving foreign aid equal to more than 20 percent of its G[ross] D[omestic] P[roduct].” Krugman refers to the federal government as “an insurance company with an army,” and he notes that there is “nothing either the city or the state could have done to prevent” the wildfires. “If the United States of America doesn’t take care of its own citizens, wherever they live and whatever their politics, we should drop “United” from our name,” he writes. “As it happens, however, California—a major driver of U.S. prosperity and power—definitely has earned the right to receive help during a crisis.”

Today, Biden announced student loan forgiveness for another 150,000 borrowers, bringing the total number of people relieved of student debt to more than 5 million borrowers, who have received $183.6 billion in relief. This has been achieved through making sure existing debt relief programs were followed, as they had not been in the past.

Establishment Republicans continue to fight MAGA Republicans, and MAGA fights among itself: former Trump ally Steve Bannon yesterday called Trump’s sidekick Elon Musk “truly evil” and vowed to “take this guy down.” But even as their enablers in the legacy media are normalizing Republican behavior, a reality-based media is stepping up to counter the disinformation.

Aside from the many independent outlets that have held MAGA Republicans to account, MSNBC today announced that progressive journalist Rachel Maddow will return to hosting a nightly one-hour show for the first 100 days of the Trump presidency.

And today journalist Jennifer Rubin joined her colleagues who have abandoned the Washington Post as it swung toward Trump. She resigned from the Washington Post with the announcement that she and former White House ethics lawyer Norm Eisen have started a new media outlet called The Contrarian. Joining them is a gold-star list of journalists and commentators who have stood against the rise of Trump and the MAGA Republicans, many of whom have left publications as those outlets moved rightward.

“Corporate and billionaire owners of major media outlets have betrayed their audiences’ loyalty and sabotaged journalism’s sacred mission—defending, protecting and advancing democracy,” Rubin wrote in her resignation announcement. In contrast, the new publication “will be a central hub for unvarnished, unbowed, and uncompromising reported opinion and analysis that exists in opposition to the authoritarian threat.”

“The urgency of the task before us cannot be overstated,” The Contrarian’s mission statement read. “We have already entered the era of oligarchy—rule by a narrow clique of powerful men (almost exclusively men). We have little doubt that billionaires will dominate the Trump regime, shape policy, engage in massive self-dealing, and seek to quash dissent and competition in government and the private sector. As believers in free markets subject to reasonable regulation and economic opportunity for all, we recognize this is a threat not only to our democracy but to our dynamic, vibrant economy that remains the envy of the world.”

In what appears to be a rebuke to media outlets that are cozying up to Trump, The Contrarian’s credo is “Not Owned by Anybody.”

[jcmarchi]

Intel Unveils Groundbreaking Optical Compute Interconnect Chiplet, Revolutionizing AI Data Transmission

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/intel-unveils-groundbreaking-optical-compute-interconnect-chiplet-revolutionizing-ai-data-transmission/

Intel Unveils Groundbreaking Optical Compute Interconnect Chiplet, Revolutionizing AI Data Transmission

Intel Corporation has reached a revolutionary milestone in integrated photonics technology, Integrated photonics technology involves the integration of photonic devices, such as lasers, modulators, and detectors, onto a single microchip using semiconductor fabrication techniques similar to those used for electronic integrated circuits. This technology allows for the manipulation and transmission of light signals on a micro-scale, offering significant advantages in terms of speed, bandwidth, and energy efficiency compared to traditional electronic circuits.

Today, Intel introduced the first fully integrated optical compute interconnect (OCI) chiplet co-packaged with an Intel CPU at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference (OFC) 2024. This OCI chiplet, designed for high-speed data transmission, signifies a significant advancement in high-bandwidth interconnects, aimed at enhancing AI infrastructure in data centers and high-performance computing (HPC) applications.

Key Features and Capabilities:

High Bandwidth and Low Power Consumption:

Supports 64 channels of 32 Gbps data transmission in each direction.

Achieves up to 4 terabits per second (Tbps) bidirectional data transfer.

Energy-efficient, consuming only 5 pico-Joules (pJ) per bit compared to pluggable optical transceiver modules at 15 pJ/bit.

Extended Reach and Scalability:

Capable of transmitting data up to 100 meters using fiber optics.

Supports future scalability for CPU/GPU cluster connectivity and new compute architectures, including coherent memory expansion and resource disaggregation.

Enhanced AI Infrastructure:

Addresses the growing demands of AI infrastructure for higher bandwidth, lower power consumption, and longer reach.

Facilitates the scalability of AI platforms, supporting larger processing unit clusters and more efficient resource utilization.

Technical Advancements:

Integrated Silicon Photonics Technology: Combines a silicon photonics integrated circuit (PIC) with an electrical IC, featuring on-chip lasers and optical amplifiers.

High Data Transmission Quality: Demonstrated with a transmitter (Tx) and receiver (Rx) connection over a single-mode fiber (SMF) patch cord, showcasing a 32 Gbps Tx eye diagram with strong signal quality.

Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM): Utilizes eight fiber pairs, each carrying eight DWDM wavelengths, for efficient data transfer.

Impact on AI and Data Centers:

Boosts ML Workload Acceleration: Enables significant performance improvements and energy savings in AI/ML infrastructure.

Addresses Electrical I/O Limitations: Provides a superior alternative to electrical I/O, which is limited in reach and bandwidth density.

Supports Emerging AI Workloads: Essential for the deployment of larger and more efficient machine learning models.

Future Prospects:

Prototype Stage: Intel is currently working with select customers to co-package OCI with their system-on-chips (SoCs) as an optical I/O solution.

Continued Innovation: Intel is developing next-generation 200G/lane PICs for emerging 800 Gbps and 1.6 Tbps applications, along with advancements in on-chip laser and SOA performance.

Intel’s Leadership in Silicon Photonics:

Proven Reliability and Volume Production: Over 8 million PICs shipped, with over 32 million integrated on-chip lasers, showcasing industry-leading reliability.

Advanced Integration Techniques: Hybrid laser-on-wafer technology and direct integration provide superior performance and efficiency.

Intel’s OCI chiplet represents a significant leap forward in high-speed data transmission, poised to revolutionize AI infrastructure and connectivity.

[sniperct]

I saw someone saying that Toyota is also not investing in battery cars in the near future... so I found this article https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterlyon/2024/03/03/bucking-industry-trend-toyota-chairman-downplays-ev-growth-predictions/ AT LEAST they are investing in researching hydrogen drivetrains. But not because batteries also suck for environmental reasons. It seems that money is the only thing that drives them, so, huh, f*** them!

Looks like the dude who's against EVs got replaced last year by someone trying to advance them more, so its more likely the first dude pushed them behind the curve.

It is hard to assess whether Toyoda’s views are shared among his fellow Toyota executives or if his comments merely reflect his personal thoughts towards electrification. It is more likely the latter, though, given that the company says it is prepared to comply with legislation prohibiting sales of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035, and wants to deliver 1.5 million EVs by 2026, or 14% of its estimated sales total. Meanwhile, even with these headstrong views, Toyoda does not appear to be opposing the acceleration of zero-emission cars. He and Sato have both commented on Toyota’s focus on developing e-fuels which are produced with the help of electricity from energy sources such as water and CO2. Toyoda also stated during his media conference that "Japan is the only developed country to reduce CO2 emissions by 23%," a success rate that is largely attributable to the nation's growing reliance on hybrid vehicles.

Side note, I'm deeply amused that the person currently running Toyota is named Sato.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Matt Wuerker

* * * *

"We're not weird."

August 10, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

I am watching the Harris-Walz rally in Arizona as I write this newsletter on Friday evening. The venue is packed, and the crowd is wildly enthusiastic. Tim Walz delivered an even more enthusiastic speech than when he was introduced in Philadelphia on Tuesday. (Who knew? Where has this guy been hiding?)

But the most striking takeaway is the look of pure joy and happiness on Kamala Harris’s face as she delivers her remarks. She is genuinely enjoying herself as she delivers hopeful remarks and plays off the energy of the crowd.

Trump, on the other hand, used his press conference yesterday to predict the “end of days,” including an economic depression and World War III. And on Friday evening, he was reduced to telling his MAGA supporters, “We’re not weird.” It's hardly a compelling campaign slogan, but Trump has to work with what he’s got.

Which message is more likely to motivate voters to turn out at the ballot box? If the trends in the polls and the reaction of crowds at rallies are any indication, the momentum strongly favors Harris and Walz.

Kamala Harris has led the most remarkable political turnaround in American history for which she (and Joe Biden’s immediate endorsement) deserve tremendous credit. But there is much work to be done. We know that Republicans will sow chaos to interfere with a Democratic victory. That is why we must do everything in our power to ensure that Kamala Harris wins the presidency by a wide margin. We must convert enthusiasm into votes.

To state the obvious, converting enthusiasm into votes is a much better problem than fighting a pervasive sense of impending doom. We must not deceive ourselves about the level of effort and organization being demanded of us. But as we engage in the hard work of converting enthusiasm into votes, we should do so with a sense of hope, confidence, and joy.

For the second weekend in a row, we can look to the future unburdened by the anxiety that dragged us down for so long. I will go into the weekend with the image of Kamala Harris’s joyful remarks to an enthusiastic crowd in a swing state that is now back in play. It doesn’t get much better than that!

Coda to yesterday’s press event at Mar-a-Lago.

First, if you have not watched Lawrence O’Donnell’s analysis of the media's collective failure in its reporting on Trump’s press event at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday, I urge you to do so. Lawrence O’Donnell’s segment is destined to become a classic of broadcast television that rivals the statement during the McCarthy hearings by Army lawyer Joseph Welch, “Have you no sense of decency?”

I guarantee that if you watch the segment, it will deepen your understanding of how the media enabled Trump’s initial rise and continued viability despite an attempted coup, inciting an insurrection, attempted bribery of Ukraine, refusal to return national defense documents, and two impeachments. See Lawrence: 'Stupidest' candidate Trump did not answer reporters' questions (msnbc.com).

Two post-debate developments underscore the bizarre nature of the press event yesterday.

Were reporters mere props at Trump’s press event on Thursday?

Susan Glasser published an analysis in The New Yorker, Does Anyone in America Miss Joe Biden as Much as Donald Trump? Glasser’s analysis included this shocking statement:

Trump summoned handpicked members of the media to Mar-a-Lago for a press conference, the point of which was to change the subject from Harris’s remarkable honeymoon.

If true, the hand-picked journalists were used as props by Trump in a propaganda event. Worse, they knew they were props but played their assigned role nonetheless.

If true, that fact would explain the journalists' odd complacency, the obsequious nature of the questions, and the lack of follow-up in the face of obvious lies.

I say “If true” because I can find no separate confirmation of Glasser’s statement. But someone should pursue that question. If true, it is a scandal, and every reporter who participated in the sham press event owes an apology to the public.

Was Trump involved in an emergency landing of a helicopter with Willie Brown, the former Speaker of California’s State Assembly?

At the press event, Trump claimed he was in an emergency landing of a helicopter on which California Speaker Willie Brown was a passenger. Trump told the story of the near crash in a helicopter to frame a story that Willie Brown told him something negative about Kamala Harris during that helicopter ride. Trump said of Willie Brown, “He told me terrible things about her.” (Kamala Harris and Willie Brown dated in the 1990s. )

Willie Brown told the media that he was not on a helicopter with Trump that was forced to make an emergency landing. The NYTimes published a story on Thursday titled, That Time Trump Nearly Died in a Helicopter Crash? Didn’t Happen. (This article is accessible to all.)

The Times’ story makes clear that “several elements of the story” do not stand up to scrutiny, including the claim that Willie Brown was on the helicopter with Trump.

On Friday, Trump threatened to sue the NYTimes, claiming that he had flight records to back up his story.

So, this is interesting. Trump is either doubling down on his lie, or the NYTimes published a story with false statements.

As of Friday, it appears that Trump is doubling down on his lie—a fact that became clear when another Black politician—Nate Holden—told Politico that he was on the helicopter ride with Trump that was forced to make an emergency landing. See Politico, The other Black politician who says he was with Trump in that near-fatal chopper crash.

So, it appears that Trump has confused two Black politicians from California. And the Black politician who was on the helicopter ride with Trump told Politico the following:

Before he hung up with Politico, Holden assured a reporter that nobody discussed—let alone criticized—Kamala Harris as Trump claimed Brown did.

“He either mixed it up,” Holden said. “Or, he made it up. This was just too big to overlook. This is a big one. Conflating Willie Brown and me? The press is searching for the real story and they didn’t get it. You did.”

The most reasonable inferences are (a) Trump confused two Black politicians from California, and (b) there was no discussion of Kamala Harris on the helicopter ride.

Now that Trump has threatened to sue the Times for defamation over the story, perhaps the Times will show more interest in documenting Trump’s lies.

A final bizarre aspect of this story occurred on Friday. Trump told the New York Times he was going to sue the Times and asserted that he had flight records to prove his story. Here is the Times’ account of the exchange:

“We have the flight records of the helicopter,” Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed “in a field,” and indicating that he intended to release the flight records, before shouting that he was “probably going to sue” over the Times article. When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them.

So, Trump is doubling down on his story that Willie Brown told him “terrible things” about Kamala Harris and has descended into a childish mocking of the Times’ reporter asking for records of some elements of Trump’s story.

While this story may seem overly complicated and like a tempest in a teapot, the fact that Trump has put the Times’ credibility on the line could be a tipping point for the Times to begin holding Trump to a standard for veracity that it applies to all other politicians. That would be a welcome development, indeed!

[Late update: In a Truth Social post late Friday, Trump attacked Maggie Haberman of the New York Times over the story, calling her “Maggot Hagerman.” Looks like the gloves may be coming off.]

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[brooklyndadshow]

Climate Week is here! Cue music!

Today I have my first event for Climate Week! I've been getting psyched up for representing my company, Unified Ground, at Climate Week for weeks. This year feels different than other years - a lot different. I feel much more connected to my environmental justice community and community of people of color in energy and justice than I have before. Conferences and climate week in particular can feel so overwhelming. Honestly a lot of coporate things that don't feel like they have anything to do with change. This year, I'm connected to so people and projects so all the events feel natural for me to be a part of. Here's what I wrote on LinkedIn today:

NYC Climate Week is Here! 🎉 It’s going to be a full exciting week of events starting with opening night of the Climate Film Festival tonight!! I’m feeling really connected to my environmental justice community and I’m looking forward to seeing so many people in person.  If you want to know all the places I’ll be, send me a message and I can send you the full schedule. Here are the key events you can find me at: 

Climate Film Festival: I’m Moderating the panel "SHORTS: Power Shift: Defying Fossil Fuels" on Sunday, September 21st at 12:30 PM at DCTV.  I’ll also be attending films and the closing ceremony on Sunday. (https://climatefilmfest.eventive.org/schedule/shorts-power-shift-defying-fossil-fuels-66bc11ef3bea91005c3b6dd8 )

Make It in Brooklyn Climate Tech Pitch Contest: Pitching Unified Ground’s business in front of industry judges on Tuesday, September 23rd at 6 PM at Hana House. (https://lu.ma/ghfgy25v) 

New Climate Futures @Newlab: We have a small display as part of the Founder’s Fellowship program and I’ll be at the conference on Thursday, September 26th from 10 AM to 6 PM at Newlab. (https://www.newlab.com/new-climate-futures )

Climate Karaoke 🎤: If you know me well you know my love of Karaoke so no way I was going to pass up this event at one of my favorite spots Planet Rose Thursday, September 26th at 8 PM. (https://lu.ma/climatekaraoke )

Climate Justice Lives Here! Festival - Finishing the week in Brooklyn where Climate Justice Lives!!  Pier 4 Brooklyn Army Terminal, September 28th 2-7pm (https://www.uprose.org/event/save-the-date-climate-justice-action-in-september-2024/ )

Hope to see you! 🌱

#ClimateWeek #NYC #ClimateChange #Sustainability #Innovation #PanelDiscussion #PitchCompetition #Conference #Karaoke #climatejustice #environmentaljustice #ClimateJusticeLivesHere

Now I wouldn't be me if I didn't add some fun creative for Climate Justice and Climate Week. So Created some ClimateWeek songs and images!

[rjzimmerman]

Notes: The electricity generation trajectories for wind and solar PV indicate potential generation, including current curtailment rates. However, they do not project future wind and solar PV curtailment, which may be significant in some countries by 2028.

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

With solar leading the way, renewables are on track to generate nearly 50 percent of global electricity this decade. But green energy is still predicted to fall short of the United Nations target of tripling capacity, according to Renewables 2024: Analysis and forecast to 2030, a report from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

More than 5,500 gigawatts (GW) of global renewable capacity is set to be added between now and 2030, which is nearly three times the growth from 2017 to 2023, the report said.

“Renewables are moving faster than national governments can set targets for,” said Fatih Birol, IEA’s executive director, as Reuters reported. “This is mainly driven not just by efforts to lower emissions or boost energy security: it’s increasingly because renewables today offer the cheapest option to add new power plants in almost all countries around the world.”

Based on today’s governmental policy settings and current market trends, of the world’s renewable capacity installed between 2024 and 2030, almost 60 percent will come from China, a press release from IEA said.

That would mean nearly half the total global renewable power capacity would be in China by 2030, up from a third in 2010.

“Due to supportive policies and favourable economics, the world’s renewable power capacity is expected to surge over the rest of this decade, with global additions on course to roughly equal the current power capacity of China, the European Union, India and the United States combined,” the press release said.

This decade, solar PV is projected to account for 80 percent of worldwide renewable capacity growth. This is due to the construction of large solar plants and an increase in installations of rooftop solar by households and companies.

The expansion of wind is forecast to double between now and the end of the decade, compared with the period 2017 to 2023.

In nearly every country in the world, solar PV and wind are the least expensive options for adding new electricity generation.

Because of these trends, almost 70 countries that together make up 80 percent of renewable capacity around the world are set to meet or exceed their current renewable goals for 2030.

“The growth is not fully in line with the goal set by nearly 200 governments at the COP28 climate change conference in December 2023 to triple the world’s renewable capacity this decade – the report forecasts global capacity will reach 2.7 times its 2022 level by 2030,” the press release said. “But IEA analysis indicates that fully meeting the tripling target is entirely possible if governments take near-term opportunities for action.”