Scientists trace heat waves back to individual fossil fuel companies, with potentially sweeping courtroom implications

[Alan Ambrose]

For the first time, scientists have quantified the causal links between worsening heat waves and global warming pollution from individual fossil fuel and cement companies, pushing the boundaries of extreme weather event research in multiple surprising ways.

The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, looks at a far more expansive series of heat waves than previous research. It also incorporates the causes of climate change into the calculations.

Instead of looking at one or two localized extreme heat events, the new study encompasses 213 heat waves around the world from 2000 to 2023. It finds, not surprisingly, that heatwaves became much more likely and severe during that period, largely due to the burning of fossil fuels.

Between the first and second decade that the researchers investigated, climate change made the heatwaves climb from being 20 times more likely to 200 times more likely, according to lead author Yann Quilcaille, a climate researcher at ETH Zurich.

 

Scientists trace heat waves back to individual fossil fuel companies, with potentially sweeping courtroom implications | CNN

 

Carbon Majors Entities

 

 

[Spinny]

BS

Our paid scientist says anything at all we pay him/her to say. And there are multiple dodgy people paying for this cargo cult science with ulterior motives.

[Alan Ambrose]

Climate change is a fraud? Who are these people financing the cult and what are their motives?

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, Spinny said:

BS

Our paid scientist says anything at all we pay him/her to say. And there are multiple dodgy people paying for this cargo cult science with ulterior motives.

Really.

Explain more?

 

 

[kandgmitchell]

The other evening I was reading about the 12th century Bishop of Hereford having gallons of wine made from his vineyards around Hereford during the "warm" decades, then we have the ice fairs on the Thames as late as 1814. There is obviously some natural fluctuation in climate even without the impact we are having. Trouble these days is finding balanced, impartial views when the mainstream media is forecasting disaster for the planet at every turn.

[ProDave]

If, like me, you are at all skeptical of the current push for "net zero"  have a read if this.  Try and read it without prejudice and for a moment forget all the media hype constantly fed to us about net zero.     https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/weve-got-trouble-with-wind/

 

It does a good job of explaining how we stand no hope of reaching net zero without a massive amount of storage for when the wind does not blow.

 

Yet like sheep most accept this relentless drive to build more and more wind farms on the promise it will lower our energy bills.

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

Yet like sheep most accept this relentless drive to build more and more wind farms

I might read it later, without prejudice, other than it being fairly clear from your summary that you agree with it's premise., which might just be that we don't need more wind farms.

So I am prejudiced already I feel.

Hence I'm guessing also that the author isn't much worried about our gas and oil being cut off. 

 

My philosophy is to aim for "nett much less" , as zero is impossible except in a disastrous return to the stone age, and because the major powers like things as they are.

My garden has enough free compost to save buying 10 bags a year, and veg from june to september.  I already own the petrol and battery powered equipment, so that doesn't count as a cost. 

I put on a jumper before turning on the heating. That is approaching nett zero isn't it?

 

[ProDave]

7 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

My philosophy is to aim for "nett much less" , as zero is impossible except in a disastrous return to the stone age, and because the major powers like things as they are.

That's where I sit.  Our pollution is way less than it used to be but we rarely see any praise for that.  And yes we should improve our renewable generation as fast as we can, but without setting unachievable targets that just serve to cripple the countries economy and kill our remaining industry *  And then blame us for not all buying EV's when it is not achieved.

 

How about acknowledging we will STILL need oil for a long time, but in hopefully diminishing amounts.  So lets use our own, rather than increase polution buying foreign oil and trasnporting it long distances.  Not to mention the energy security and employment by continuing to use our own oil.

 

*  We have closed down our virgin steel blast furnaces and about to shut another oil refinery.  Because they are too polluting.  Great WE might be a little bit greener but have fewer jobs and a poorer economy, but the WORLD won't be any greener as instead that heavy industry is being done in another country that is not so short sighted.

[cjsparkey]

Those last two posts are far too sensible, it won’t catch on in todays polarised society where you are encouraged to take sides and nuance has left the discourse.

 

The wind turbine developments locally to us have integrated storage and solar to maximise the efficiency and presumably return on investment.

 

Edited 17 hours ago by cjsparkey

[saveasteading]

10 minutes ago, cjsparkey said:

Those last two posts are far too sensible, it won’t catch on in todays polarised society where you are encouraged to take sides

quite so. Aren't we boring writing middle of the road stuff.  Those who want to read about how awful everything is / will be can find it in their own chosen source of information.

 

The 'middle of the road'  news suppliers are ridiculed by both extremes, and equally by the powers who provide their chosen version of news.

 

Being personal for a moment. I do like the BBC news, TV and radio, and their website. That is where I go for real information.  Perhaps it is cautious at times but otherwise they get sued or shut down, and certainly bullied. The unspoken stuff will be there too, nuanced perhaps, but not ignored.

I do look at extreme views for information, and I do worry that the average punters ( or the ones we hear from) identify with their chosen extremes.

To much 'journalism' is just cut and pasted from press releases.

 

That's verging too close to politics perhaps, for BH, except that we major in pragmatic sustainability, but I welcome others' input as to where balanced information can be found.

Edited 17 hours ago by saveasteading

[ProDave]

7 minutes ago, cjsparkey said:

The wind turbine developments locally to us have integrated storage and solar to maximise the efficiency and presumably return on investment.

 

WHY are most of the wind farms still being built in Scotland, when it is so far away from the centres of usage and the existing grid cannot cope?  How about more wind farms are built on the Cotswolds, Chilterns, Berkshire Downs, South downs etc etc, see how they like their hills blighted with wind farms and pylons?

 

I was travelling the north coast from Thurso to Cape Wrath last week and a staggering amount of new wind farms are being built along that north coat which WILL require another large high voltage pylon running south, probably very close to my house.   

[ProDave]

2 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

Being personal for a moment. I do like the BBC news

The most vigorous mouthpiece for global warming is man made and disaster is imminent of we don't all stop burning oil.  They NEVER air anything whatsoever that might question if that really is the best way forward. 

[sgt_woulds]

Global warming is man-made, and we do need to stop burning everything.  The question is how we go about achieving that, not that it should happen surely?

[ProDave]

48 minutes ago, sgt_woulds said:

Global warming is man-made, and we do need to stop burning everything.  The question is how we go about achieving that, not that it should happen surely?

So how did the previous warming / cooling phases of the earth occur before man came along let alone before we started burning things?

 

What PROOF do you or anyone have that if we stop all burning, the planet will then be fine? 

 

Why did the planet not go into thermal runaway when CO2 levels were previously higher, again before man had anything to do with it?

 

Of course we should continue to clean up everything we do, but at a sustainable rate.

 

Or are you one of the believers that thinks the only way is for us to go back to the stone age in how we live and work, no or little ability to travel anywhere etc, because THAT is what is necessary to achieve net zero as quick as we are being told, but nobody is telling it that it will severely limit what we do.

[saveasteading]

2 minutes ago, ProDave said:

How about more wind farms are built on the Cotswolds, Chilterns, Berkshire

I think we know that answer. The number of voters, encouraged by the locals with big money.

 

Plus, as a Scot living in the far SE I am constantly aware that the majority here have not travelled much north of Kings Cross, and have minimal interest.

"Scotland" is mentioned in the ignorant London press as a minor place.   eg  Lord and Lady Muck have a house in Mayfair and another in Scotland.

This is more a matter of ignorance and educational lack, than any malice, and I know that 'the Midlands', 'The North' etc have it nearly as bad.

 

On a positive note. In the event of any political breakdown, Scotland will be self contained in energy or could add 1p to every kW that crosses the border.

Spain has many thousands of turbines on the inland hilltop ranges. In my opinion it improves the view, which can be very beige and bland, unlike Scotland's scenery.

 

3 minutes ago, ProDave said:

before man had anything to do with it

That is the language of the deniers, which I know you are not.  But man-made disasters will still be disasters, and additional to the natural ones which will keep coming whatever.

 

10 years ago 'global warming' was seen as a myth by many who now accept it as if they were always aware. They were, back then,  fed misinformation by the powers that wanted the status quo. The change of view is due to gentle persuasion by those of us who care.

[saveasteading]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

They NEVER air anything whatsoever that might question if that really is the best way forward.

That is your imagination or selective viewing, or repeating what the competition are saying.

Perhaps you disagree with what you hear  and regard it is propaganda. 

I've heard plenty such reports and programmes.

Try BBC2 and Radio 4 for more nuance aimed at seekers of information rather than entertainment.

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, kandgmitchell said:

The other evening I was reading about the 12th century Bishop of Hereford having gallons of wine made from his vineyards around Hereford during the "warm" decades, then we have the ice fairs on the Thames as late as 1814

This has been a trope for decades.

Wine is made in many places, including the British Isles, for centuries. I have an 'English' grape vine with in my garden.

The main reason we stopped making wine (made it when the Celts got pushed out by the Romans) was two fold. 

It was dreadful.

Trade routes opened up (mainly because of the Romans).

You can read up about it in John Smith's Wealth of Nations (the part about division of labour).

 

As for the Thames freezing, it still would freeze up in some winters. The Thames, from Cricklade, down to the Thames Barrier, has been made wider, deeper, flood controlled and totally navigable all year round, it was a major trade route from the East to the West, canals have joined it up to the Avon to make cargo transportable to Bristol (and other parts of the country).

If you look at the bridges that were in the Thames in London, they were quite short (the river is 3 or 4 times wider in places), with many arches, only a few feet apart (boat were small back then), road travel was the primary form of transport until the industrial revolution in the mid 1700s.

So with slower flow rates, shallower depths, basically a lot less water, freezing over happened easily (but not every winter and not for very long).

 

Hope that has knocked that zombie myth on the head, but I doubt it.

[SteamyTea]

4 hours ago, ProDave said:

Try and read it without prejudice and for a moment forget all the media hype constantly fed to us about net zero

That article has been floating around for a while now (dates get changed).

Unfortunately, Williams is relying on people not understanding the difference between power, energy (very common), installed capacity, peak demand and so forth.

 

You are right though, we do need storage.

If you remember 3 years ago when the Ukrainian war started, the UK gas storage was deleted, this was reflected in the gas price.

We also quickly imported stored gas in ships.

So basically, natural gas relies on storage as well. As dies gasoline, diesel, coal, biomass and hydro electric.

To say that there are times that the wind does not blow, and the sun dies not shine, is just missing the point and wrong. As I have shown many times, over the last few years there has not been a time when some RE has not been contributing to the grid (and a decade ago the contribution was quite small).

[SteamyTea]

3 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Hence I'm guessing also that the author isn't much worried about our gas and oil being cut off. 

They have forgotten about the industrial action by the miners in the 1960s that caused our electricity to be rationed. So much for energy security and jobs (it also caused the dash fir gas).

We also had the 2000 fuel protest that caused as much disruption as COVID, though over a much shorter timescale).

Then there was the Yom Kippor War in 1973, that (expletive deleted)ed the global economy and we are all still paying the price of that. 52 years and we learnt nothing, not even to stockpile energy.

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, ProDave said:

but without setting unachievable targets

But targets are needed in everything.

Can you imagine a moving target for the standards if driving?

Under your system, if there were not enough people to drive busses and taxis, you would drop the qualification. How low would you drip it? Let 14 year olds drive a train, bus, aeroplane.

Maybe medical surgeon only needs to say they can do a heart bypass for 50 quid and they don't need a hospital.

[SteamyTea]

2 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I do like the BBC news, TV and radio, and their website

Did you hear this week's Moral Maze.  I must relisten to it as missed parts.

Was about Net Zero.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002j5w6

 

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

So how did the previous warming / cooling phases of the earth occur before man came along let alone before we started burning things

Was a combination of different orbits, comet bombardment, shifting and fragmenting landmasses, totally different plant and bacteria mixes, volcanic eruptions.

All been explained pretty well by the geo-physicists.

There really is not that much mystery about what has happened in the last 4 billion years of the Earths history, just very finer details of more localised events.

[SteamyTea]

Right, I have answered quite a bit about this (mainly restating what I have said before, many times).

 

Can I also say that I spent many years at university studying at degree and above level, renewable energy, environmental science, climate change, risk management and especially the local effects of weather on PV production.

Most of the arguments against climate change and RE have been voiced for decades, and are nothing new. It is becoming very tiresome to have to go over the same ground  over and over again.

 

My favourite is 'the UK only accounts for 1% of global emissions'.

Swap the word emissions to waste.

Then make it local to yourself.

Imaging if 1 in 100 household just scattered all their waste around where you lived. 

Would you consider it minor, remember that they are going to do it everyday, all day, and not stop.

[Alan Ambrose]

Well I hate to bring the original article up again, but...

 

The list of biggest carbon emitters seems sort of interesting to me - the usual suspects, and a bit simplified - presumably it's not so much the fossil fuel companies themselves but their industry and customers.

 

[ProDave]

8 minutes ago, Alan Ambrose said:

Well I hate to bring the original article up again, but...

 

The list of biggest carbon emitters seems sort of interesting to me - the usual suspects, and a bit simplified - presumably it's not so much the fossil fuel companies themselves but their industry and customers.

 

So since 2000, if not before we have been building wind farms, installing solar and shutting down our worst polluters, coal fired power stations.

 

So WHY are emissions STILL going up?

 

It seems like we have been trying so hard for well over a decade, and nothing is even beginning to get better?

 

WHY IS THAT?

 

And in true politics fashion, if we are doing what we think will solve the problem, and it does not appear to be solving the problem, then lets just keep on doing it.  Aka if you don't get the result you want, keep doing it until you do get the result you want.