No More Climate Change

Alliant plans to eliminate coal, cut emissions 80% by 2050

Dive Brief:

• Alliant Energy on Thursday issued its Corporate Sustainability Report, revealing a plan to eliminate coal use and cut emissions 80% by 2050. 
• The company will spend more than $2 billion on new renewable energy, and will double its number of wind sites from six to a dozen. Renewables will make up more than 30% of its energy mix by 2030.
• The utility said the plan will set a more aggressive course than what the United States originally pledged in the United Nations Paris climate accord, which called for reducing carbon 32% percent below 2005 levels by 2030. The utility's plan targets a 40% reduction by 2030.

Dive Insight:

Alliant joins a handful of utilities announcing plans to eliminate coal use and increase investment in renewables. In June, Consumers Energy announced it would file a long-term plan that calls for nixing coal use by 2040 and more than tripling renewable energy utilization over the course of the next 10 years. In January, PPL Corp. said it expects most of its Kentucky coal fleet to be retired by 2050 and Duke Energy has included coal-less scenarios in its long-term planning.

New construction and purchase agreements will allow Alliant to grow its wind portfolio to more than 2,700 MW by 2021. Earlier this year Alliant received approval for 500 MW of wind in Iowa, which means about a third of its capacity in that state will be wind power by 2020.

i hear publuc servants in ON can no longer speak about climate change. i guess Doug's moratorium must mean teachers too?

it's frightening me to realize ON determines national elections more often than not.

gotta say Rafe might be right.

capitalizing or the ability to i think is part of inherent biology of all things.

capitalism is not. i think it's a sliding scale starting at the physical manifestion of capitalizing. passing the point of capitalizing homeostasis means capitalism is a pathology.

hoarding is a mental illness on the diagnostic scale. hoarding money, or capitalism, needs to be viewed for what is, a mental illness.

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Capitalism Killed Our Climate Momentum, Not 'Human Nature'  -   by Naomi Klein

Is capitalism still responsible for our inaction?  Or people's unwillingness to go vegan, drink tapwater, walk instead of driving, choose to live where they can walk instead of driving, stop heating their giant swimming pool, vacation locally, set their thermostat to 18 and wear a sweater, or turn the A/C off in their car and open a window?

The heart wants what the heart wants.  And sometimes that's to go to Cancun if there's cheap tickets online.

Perhaps we just disagree.  I don't believe that "power" forces people to drive 6km to the PriceCo. to stock up on cases of bottled water.

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i posted a piece that spoke of 100 corporation producing 71% of the carbon. that leaves the rest of us producing 29%. yet you, and others i might add, choose to focus on the 29%. why?

I just tried to find it, by searching for "71" in this thread but couldn't.  If you can post a link, I'll take a look.

But just provisionally, those 100 corporations producing 71% of the carbon... are they selling it to anyone? 

I certainly don't produce much carbon -- it's not like I'm out in my backyard burning coal -- but are we buying it?  And are there alternatives?

UN Scientific Paper Suggests Capitalism Has to Die in Order for the Planet to Be Saved

Capitalism and global sustainability are incongruous with one another, according to a recent paper for the UN’s 2019 Global Sustainable Development Report.

The team of researchers from various academic institutions throughout Finland who wrote the report gave a sobering assessment of the planet’s future if the current economic order continues unabated. Namely, that all rich Western countries have based their societies on an abundance of cheap energy, which the scientists say is no longer a reality.

“Economies have used up the capacity of planetary ecosystems to handle the waste generated by energy and material use,” the paper reads. “[D]ominant economic theories as well as policy-related economic modeling rely on the presupposition of continued energetic and material growth. The theories and models anticipate only incremental changes in the existing economic order. Hence, they are inadequate for explaining the current turmoil.”

Scientists argued that worsening climate change is having a drastic impact on ecosystems and biodiversity, and that symptoms of unchecked capitalism like rising inequality, unemployment, and debt are also contributing to the destabilization of society. In order to guarantee that humanity is able to have a good quality of life on earth for future generations, the paper’s authors argued that new economic systems will have to be created, rather than the standard band-aid approach governments have taken in the recent past.

“Central banks in the US and the Eurozone have resorted to unconventional measures such as negative interest rates and buying up significant amounts of public debt,” researchers wrote. “This has relieved some economic pressure, but … It can be safely said that no widely applicable economic models have been developed specifically for the upcoming era.”

While the paper didn’t endorse any specific economic system to be used in lieu of capitalism, scientists said it would necessary to “transform the ways in which energy, transport, food, and housing are produced and consumed” with the goal of attaining “production and consumption that provides decent opportunities for a good life while dramatically reducing the burden on natural ecosystems.”

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Is capitalism still responsible for our inaction?  Or people's unwillingness to go vegan, drink tapwater, walk instead of driving, choose to live where they can walk instead of driving, stop heating their giant swimming pool, vacation locally, set their thermostat to 18 and wear a sweater, or turn the A/C off in their car and open a window?

The heart wants what the heart wants.  And sometimes that's to go to Cancun if there's cheap tickets online.

Problem is materialism. However this is a weapon currently used by corporations strictly to satisfy an never ending gluttonous appetite for profits!

People are brainwashed. They will do whatever the corporations tell them to do. Corporations using materialism are the problem. If people just stopped being materialistic, the corporations would only increase their brainwashing efforts by 10X! Government must intervene or we're doomed for sure!

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Problem is materialism. However this is a weapon currently used by corporations strictly to satisfy an never ending gluttonous appetite for profits!

This is at least the third post of yours blaming the world's problems on materialism, so I'll assume you had some kind of epiphany, and this is the rock on which you make your stand.

Anyway, in the context of environmentalism, I think it's more a case of convenience that drives people.  Nobody lives on Mama Michelina's 99 cent frozen entrees, or drives a mile that they could walk, or uses a "pod" coffee maker because of materialism. 

And to anyone else:  I'm not suggesting that the fix has to come from us all making meaningless little choices to wash and rinse our drinking straws, while corporations do nothing different.

But I do feel like, at a certain point, if people really are as worried about the environment as they tell pollsters they are, they could perhaps drink tap water just the one time?  Try giving some to their pet and see if it dies, maybe?  But I see so much ridiculous and needless waste happening that it's hard for me to believe that the environment is the "big issue" of our time.

And just as we can't fix it all ourselves by re-using drinking straws, neither can "the elites" fix it for us while we keep buying billions of plastic bottles filled with "non-cootie" water.

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Ohhh I really stuck a thorn in you hey Mr Magoo?

No.  I think I've made it clear that you've totally got the wrong end of the stick here.

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What the matter, a little too attached to your possessions and lifestyle?

Aside from the little row house my wife and I live in, my single most valuable possession is a camera (I'm a photographer) which would probably sell for about a thousand dollars.  No car.  No boat.  No cottage.  No diamonds.  No gold.

I honestly can't recall the last time I bought any clothing other than socks and underwear new.  My TV isn't even HD, which isn't that important since I haven't watched it in about four years.  My wife rides a bicycle that a friend gave us... is that the possession that you think I'm obsessed with (or, is my wife riding a bike to work the lifestyle that you think I'm obsessed with?)

Anyway, carry on.  Tell me more about me.

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Perhaps your writing style that you use gave me this impression?

Hehe.  Ya, sometimes I indulge my "teacher with hockey kids and an SUV" writing style for emphasis.

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Either way, I made my point.

Unless it had something to do with your vast imagination, no, sorry.  You didn't.

California Is Close to Passing a Bill That Would Require 100% Clean Energy by 2045

California is on a path to 100% clean energy.

A bill, which would require California to transition to a fully renewable energy grid devoid of fossil fuels by 2045, passed the state Assembly on Tuesday, bringing it one step closer to becoming a reality.

The bill has been under debate for nearly two years and has faced objections from utilities and oil companies and some Assembly members. But on Tuesday, the Assembly voted 43-32 in favor of the bill, which had been introduced by Sen. Kevin de León. Senate Bill 100 will now return to the state Senate, where it is expected to pass. It will then be sent to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.

Should the bill pass, California will be only the second state after Hawaii to pass a plan to rely solely on clean energy by 2045. But SB100’s ambitions don’t end there. The bill also ups the state’s clean energy goals, requiring that utilities providers generate 60% of their power from renewable sources by 2030. That goal had previously been set at 50% by 2030....

..i'm surprised it got this far. and it's expected to pass the senate so we'll see. eta: it's not that the only benefit comes right at the end. the process itself can bring change.

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..i'm surprised it got this far. and it's expected to pass the senate so we'll see. eta: it's not that the only benefit comes right at the end. the process itself can bring change.

Well, fair enough.  And it does kind of look like California is trying to get ahead of the curve.  I guess when I picture L.A. I just still picture lanes and lanes worth of cars on the freeway, and it's hard to imagine them giving that up until sometime late in 2044.

progressive17 wrote:

If Greenland melts, the sea goes up 7 metres all over the world. Victoria, BC is gone.

No.  Just No.  I live in Victoria and it would not be "gone".  The vast majority of it is 15 metres or more above sea level.  We'd lose some very expensive real estate and the municipality of Oak Bay might become an island but  Victoria isn't one of the cities most at risk.  Greater Vancouver, OTOH, is likely to be in for a world of pain even in much less severe circumstances.  Richmond, Delta, parts of Surrey and other areas are all vulnerable even at much lower levels of sea level rise.  At 7 metres, Richmond would be mostly "gone".

In the world, areas at risk include the US eastern seaboard, parts of California (including, oddly, Sacramento), the low countries in Europe, parts of China, south Asia and areas around the 'stans' on the Caspian Sea.  If anyone is interested, here is a simulator that shows effects of sea level rise.

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So is Florida

South Florida is in a unique situation.  Not only is it very close to sea level, it's built on porous limestone.  If they were to build sea walls or dikes, the water will just seep up through the ground.  It already happens during king tides.  Their drinking water is at serious risk.  I wouldn't take South Florida real estate if you gave it to me.

Montreal wants to be carbon neutral by 2050

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante wants her city to be carbon neutral by 2050.

Plante made the pledge on the first day of the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, where Jean-Francois Parenteau, the city councillor responsible for the environment, is representing Montreal.

As part of its climate change efforts, the City of Montreal wants to “decarbonize” all municipal buildings by 2030, a measure that would be extended to all buildings by 2050. This means buildings must operate at a net-zero carbon standard.

Buildings are responsible for 12 per cent of emissions nationwide, or 17 per cent of emissions, if including indirect pollution associated with electricity. The federal government has set aside $182 million as part of its climate change policies to encourage cities to adopt net-zero building codes by 2030.

Vancouver has also pledged to eliminate emissions from new buildings by 2030. Toronto has also made a similar pledge, alongside more than a dozen mayors from around the world who represent 130 million urban citizens....

Bill McKibben to Jerry Brown: We Must Keep the Oil in the Soil, Limiting Emissions Is Not Enough

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BILL MCKIBBEN: Some of them using that banner. And so they are assembling now representatives of state and local governments to say, “Here are the steps we’re going to take.” And that’s a very good thing to be doing. We do need to try and reassemble the momentum we had after Paris. But remember that the goal here is not to be Paris-compliant. The goal here is to deal with the physics and chemistry of climate change. And one big part of doing that is stopping the supply of these fossil fuels, at least not expanding their operation. So all anybody asked was that he stop granting new permits and start taking out those wells that are right next to people’s houses. So far, no real response on that.

The other of course thing to realize, and that people are working on hard here at the summit, is around the question of money supply. Money is the oxygen on which the fire that is global warming burns, and we’re working hard to try and staunch that supply. The good news, the best news I’ve heard all week, is that the new totals for the fossil fuel divestment campaign reached $6 trillion in endowments and portfolios.

AMY GOODMAN: Wait, now explain this again, when you think about divestment.

BILL MCKIBBEN: We have asked, for the last five years, for institutions to sell their holdings in coal and oil and gas. This was modeled on the divestment campaign after the—in the midst of South African apartheid. But it is now much larger than that campaign, because as of August, entire countries, Ireland in this case, were announcing that they were divesting from fossil fuel. New York City, London—their mayors put out a challenge on Monday to mayors of all of the other big cities in the world. They said, “We are divesting from fossil fuel. Time for everyone to take this step.”

AMY GOODMAN: What about here in San Francisco?

BILL MCKIBBEN: San Francisco has not done it yet, surprisingly. California, as I say, remains in the grip, often, of coal and oil and gas interests, but one assumes that San Francisco will eventually take this step. The problem is the “eventually.” We don’t have a hell of a lot of time left to deal with the crisis that we’re in. You were showing those pictures from Greenland a minute ago. I was up there helping them film, and I’ve got to say it is sobering, even for someone who has worked as long on this as I have, to stand there and almost literally in real time watch those glaciers disappear into the sea. It is a reminder that doing anything less than all we can do is not OK at this point. So that means we need Governor Brown to step up, and if he won’t do it, we need Governor Newsom after him to step up, and the same all over the world.

I will say that another piece of good news came late last week when the senator from Oregon, Mr. Merkley, introduced a bill in the Senate that would divest the federal government’s pension funds from fossil fuel. It obviously is not going to pass right away, but it is a marker now laid down in this fight.

..today's democracy now show is from san fran and provides excellent coverage of what is going on.

“Climate Capitalism Is Killing Our Communities”: Protesters Disrupt Gov. Brown’s SF Climate Summit