Region: International
Reflections on “Yes they can control the weather.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene is wildly wrong about government scientists controlling hurricanes. There is a rich history of weather modification experiments that make that false claim more dangerous.
Since U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted earlier this month that “Yes they can control the weather” — a bunch of commentators have pointed out that she’s wildly wrong. Yes, she’s wildly wrong. No one can make, intensify, or steer hurricanes. No ability to do anything like this is even on the horizon. Her comment …
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CONTINUE READINGModel Uncertainty in Politics and Climate Policy
The polls could be systematically off, not just due to random error. That’s a worry with climate models as well.
Yes, your favored candidate could sweep the swing states, and yes, climate change could be more moderate than we now expect. But that shouldn’t give you much comfort on either issue, since the errors could equally be in the opposite directions.
Obviously, we’d like to improve our models, but that’s not always easy. In the meantime, the smart thing is to plan on the basis of the best models we have but avoid overconfidence about our predictions.
CONTINUE READINGHow to Make Trees Worth More Standing Than Cut Down
The Katoomba Group is celebrating 25 years of pioneering new approaches to realizing value in nature. Here’s what we’ve learned.
West of Sydney, Australia, lies the Blue Mountains, a range of plateaus and panoramic canyons forested with eucalyptus trees. Oil in the leaves produces a bluish haze, hence the name of the area. Twenty-five years ago, in 1999, a new NGO called Forest Trends brought together a small international group to the town of Katoomba …
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CONTINUE READINGArctic Futures: White Shield or Blue Economy
Multiplying proposals for ice restoration face geopolitical obstacles
Ice-thickening. Glacier curtains. Cloud brightening… Proposals for Arctic climate interventions seem to be multiplying by the day. The changing climate is not only shrinking ice caps and ice sheets, but also bringing much greater than average temperature rises in polar regions. These impacts particularly disrupt the lives and livelihoods of Arctic Indigenous Peoples. Arctic impacts …
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CONTINUE READINGClimate Policy After the 2024 Election
In this UCLA Emmett Institute webinar, panelists discussed the climate implications of the 2024 election from the state, national, and international perspective.
Climate certainty. Legislative action. Whipsaw regulations. An exodus of civil servants. Chinese leadership despite being the world’s largest emitter. Those are a few of the possible outcomes of the Nov. 5 presidential election, according to our panelists. More than in any previous election, the two major candidates’ track records on environmental policies are well-established and …
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CONTINUE READINGUnderstanding China’s National Energy Security Strategy
How should the US compete with Chinese green development?
China’s dominance in clean technologies (solar, wind, electric vehicles, batteries) has been in the news recently (see, e.g., here and here). China accounts for more than 80% of global manufacturing capacity for solar products and batteries. Chinese companies produce 65% of EVs globally. The US has responded to this both with measures to improve US …
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CONTINUE READINGEarth system tipping events now seem inevitable – what does this mean for climate governance?
Building meaningful earth system governance creates multiple new research challenges
A tipping point is a system threshold beyond which change becomes self-perpetuating until a qualitatively different stable state is reached. For example a rainforest turns into a grassland, or an ice sheet melts completely. Such shifts are non-linear, and practically irreversible. Fears that growing human impacts might push aspects of the global climate past such …
CONTINUE READINGChina, Climate, and Clean Energy
China seems to have leap-frogged the U.S. on clean energy. We need to catch up.
In 2023, China accounted for about 60% of the world’s additions of solar and wind power, and of electric vehicles. The U.S. will need to make a major effort to catch up. Otherwise, we risk being shut out of important global markets and giving China an opening to influence developing countries.
CONTINUE READINGBattery Technology and EVs Take Off: A Timeline
These interlinked technologies are crucial to the energy transition. Here’s their history.
To fight global warming, we need to largely eliminate the internal combustion engine as a form of transportation. We need battery technology for this and to store electricity, because wind and solar power are intermittent. These technologies didn’t appear out of thin air. Here’s the story of their rise
CONTINUE READINGReflections from a Member of the SCoPEx Advisory Committee
Sharing my lessons
After many years of work, the Stratospheric Controlled Perturbation Experiments (SCoPEx) Advisory Committee concluded our work earlier this year after the research team at Harvard made the decision to cancel the experiment. I was a member of the Advisory Committee for much of its time, serving as chair and co-chair of the committee for …
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