Prof. Bob Howarth

@profbobhowarth.bsky.social

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Professor at Cornell University, Earth system scientist, co-EiC Land-Ocean-Atmosphere Research

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Prof. Bob Howarth

I've noticed some comments from the fossil fuel club along the lines of, "How is your EV now that there is no power in Houston?" As usual, they are not deep thinkers or well informed. insideevs.com/news/726819/...

How Electric Vehicles Powered Houston Homes During Hurricane Berylinsideevs.com As Hurricane Beryl took power out in parts of Texas, some EV owners relied on bidirectional charging to power their homes and appliances.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Musk became the world's richest white supremacist because America's first Black president wanted to fight climate change, and so DOE extended a taxpayer-funded loan to save Tesla in 2009. Soon, the stock took off. Time passes, Musk tries to elect Trump. Scary, or business as usual for capitalism?

I also urge people to buy better EVs than Tesla. Buying Tesla would mean supporting Trump, fascism, white supremacism, dictatorship etc. Luckily there are higher quality options available.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

New paper: "Forest Carbon Storage in the Western United States: Distribution, Drivers, and Trends" 🧪🌏 Take home message: Live carbon has declined across much of western United States forests, likely due to drought and fire 🔥

Forest Carbon Storage in the Western United States: Distribution, Drivers, and Trendsagupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com Live carbon has declined across much of western United States forests, likely due to drought and fire, resulting in an increase in dead carbon In the Pacific Northwest (PNW), harvest led to reduc...

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Prof. Bob Howarth

🚨 New Ocean Modeller position available at PIK as part of the Tipping Point Modelling Intercomparison Project (TIPMIP). Work would be on AMOC stability in climate models. If you're interested, link to the posting here: 🚨 Any questions, get in touch! www.pik-potsdam.de/de/aktuelles...

Stellenangebote // Open Positionswww.pik-potsdam.de

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Prof. Bob Howarth

"No rolling blackouts or grid emergencies as California continues on path to a carbon free grid. Several strategies, including upgrades to vulnerable parts of the grid at play here, but key enabler is more clean energy, especially solar, and above all, battery storage..." 😀

California Grid Breezes Through Heat Wave due to Renewables, Batteriesthinc.blog No rolling blackouts or grid emergencies as California continues on path to a carbon free grid. Several strategies, including upgrades to vulnerable parts of the grid at play here, but key enabler …

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Sharon and Justin explain how the laws of physics require the oil industry to release methane. "most of the methane released from oil and gas production is due to the industry’s idea of 'best practices.' This is what S&P Global refers to as 'a normal part of oilfield equipment operation.'”

Those methane “leaks” are no accident - Climate and Capital Mediawww.climateandcapitalmedia.com The oil and gas industry deliberately vent millions of pounds of natural gas and other toxins into the air every year.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

@txsharon.bsky.social and I have two op-eds out this week explaining two important points about methane and the oil industry. 1) In places like the Permian, there is zero economic incentive for the industry to address methane emissions. 2) Even if there was, the laws of physics are a barrier.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Some nice copy here …apparently California now has batteries roughly equivalent to 5 Diablo Canyons (in capacity, not run time…)

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Methane (aka natural gas) is a nasty climate pollutant, about 80x worse than the same mass of CO2 over the 20-25 years we have left to zero out emissions. Oil and gas companies often describe methane pollution as "leaks," but much of it is an intentional part of their daily operations.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

🤔

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Prof. Bob Howarth

This would be a really unfortunate retreat by the Biden Administration. Lots of law firms are undoubtedly watching the energy companies' use of the new Loper Bright SCOTUS ruling to intimidate Treasury. If Treasury retreats, expect the law firm blogs to highlight this new path to deregulation.

This is not good. We're going to pay companies who claim to be making "clean hydrogen" but cause emissions to go up. Sigh. Good piece about bad news by @emilypont.bsky.social heatmap.news/economy/hydr...

The Hydrogen Tax Credit Rules Are Effectively Deadheatmap.news The “three pillars” are crumbling.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

The image on the cover of the Joy Division album "Unknown Pleasures" is from a plot that radio astronomer Harold Craft made for his PhD dissertation, using data collected at Arecibo while studying the pulsar discovered by Jocelyn Bell Burnell. 🧪 🔭 👩‍🔬

Astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell was born #OTD in 1943. As a Cambridge grad student in 1967, she discovered an entirely new type of celestial object: Pulsars! In 1974 the Nobel was given to her advisor; she was left off. 🧪 👩‍🔬 🔭 Photo: National Science & Media Museum

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Reply to

Justin Mikulka

Methane regulations are one big loophole.

New Methane Regulations Unlikely to Change Oil Industry Behaviorpowering-the-planet.ghost.io It is unlikely that the new methane regulations will have the large predicted impact on reducing methane emissions for the U.S. oil and gas industry. While it is unfortunate that this is the reality, ...

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Prof. Bob Howarth

@txsharon.bsky.social and I write about how current plans to address the methane crisis in the U.S. oilfields are not going to get the job done. Also, I got a @bsky.app handle into Scientific American.

Methane’s Climate Crisis Needs More than Satellites to Stop Emissionswww.scientificamerican.com New regulations, and satellites like MethaneSat, very likely will not cut methane emissions. Natural gas industry economics will instead continue delaying their needed reduction

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Please don’t “both sides” the “violent political rhetoric” conversation when one side regularly glorifies and intimidates with guns and the other side speaks out to end gun violence. These are not the same.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Can't think of another country in the world where a 20 year old could own an assault rifle. But hey, I guess all those other countries have got it wrong eh?

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Prof. Bob Howarth

BREAKING: The Lancet has published this article "conservatively" estimating that the death toll in the Gaza genocide could be 186,000 people or more. That's 8% of the population, obliterated. These are apocalyptic figures. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

Counting the dead in Gaza: difficult but essentialwww.thelancet.com By June 19, 2024, 37 396 people had been killed in the Gaza Strip since the attack by Hamas and the Israeli invasion in October, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by the UN Offi...

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Clarence Thomas took $267,000 from a health insurance executive, then issued rulings that made health insurance companies more money, while harming millions of Americans. This is a bribe. This isn’t complicated. Expand the Supreme Court. www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Clarence Thomas, a $267,000 RV, and Why American Health Care Suckswww.rollingstone.com Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas got an RV from a top health insurance executive. Then he protected the industry.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

China has been electrifying nine times faster than the rest of the world: "the first major electrostate" - Philipp Heimberger

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Prof. Bob Howarth

The easiest way to make very low-emission steel is to use electric arc furnaces to remelt scrap using clean electricity. Steel is infinitely recyclable. China is moving in this direction. The US steel industry is doing pretty much nothing.

‘Turning point’ in China's pivot to clean steel productiontheprogressplaybook.com China is the world's largest manufacturer of steel, and the sector is its second biggest source of carbon emissions.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

"it alleges that Marathon submitted artificially low estimates of its emissions to avoid permitting requirements." Artificially low estimates. What would be another word to describe this action? Hmmm.

Marathon Oil reaches a $241 million settlement with EPA for environmental violationswww.npr.org The federal government announced a settlement with Marathon Oil for alleged air quality violations at the company's oil and gas operations on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

"In parts of southern Florida, more than 50 percent [of mangroves] have been destroyed. Yet in northern Florida, on the East Coast, mangroves have doubled in area" www.scientificamerican.com/article/mang...

Mangrove Trees Are on the Move, Taking the Tropics with Themwww.scientificamerican.com As the climate warms, mangroves are migrating farther poleward, transforming the coast as they go

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Congestion pricing now. gothamist.com/news/cars-pr...

Cars prove far deadlier than guns in NYC so far this yeargothamist.com City data shows 127 people were killed by drivers across the five boroughs during the first six months of 2024, about 55% more than the 82 who were fatally shot over the same period.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Reply to

Don Moynihan

These are not politically principled people. Their theory of political power is: "I should be able to convert money to state power to serve my interests and my preferences." Here is the free speech absolutist advocating for laws that compel people to pay him for speech! bsky.app/profile/numb...

"Hopefully, some states will consider criminal prosecution," Musk wrote, suggesting he wants it to be illegal for brands to refuse to advertise on X. arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Elon Musk calls for “criminal prosecution” of X ad boycott perpetratorsarstechnica.com Congress accused advertisers group of colluding to tank X's revenue.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

“A cat 1 hurricane shouldn’t knock out your power system,” said Kerry Emanuel, a veteran hurricane researcher and professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute for Technology. “I think you’ve got a problem with the power company, frankly.” insideclimatenews.org/news/1207202...

Hurricane Beryl Was a Warning Shot for Houston - Inside Climate Newsinsideclimatenews.org The category one storm dealt the city disastrous damage. Houston’s first direct hit from a hurricane in decades showed how vulnerable the nation’s energy capital remains.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

The Governor spends taxpayer money on a new mansion for himself, while Oklahomans struggle. Cruz and Abbott go missing while 1.5M Texans are without power. Behold the wonders of decades of Republican "governance". No paywall. wapo.st/4cx90Wq

A mom struggles to feed her kids after GOP states reject federal fundswapo.st In her rural Oklahoma town, Tabitha Shinn calculates down to the penny for groceries for her three teens but still must rely on giveaways from a food pantry.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

It remains wild to me how much better AOC is at “doing politics” than something like 98 percent of Democrats. The Supreme Court is historically popular and insanely corrupt! Holding them accountable is good policy AND good politics! ballsandstrikes.org/law-politics...

This Is How Democrats Should Be Treating the Supreme Courtballsandstrikes.org AOC's decision to file of articles of impeachment against Thomas and Alito is how Democrats should be engaging with a corrupt Supreme Court.

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Reply to

Prof. Kevin J. Kircher

Reporting: "You and I don’t get paid when we shut off our air conditioners during summer peak hours—we do that to help out. One Bitcoin miner, Riot, was paid $31 million in August last year for not mining Bitcoin. That money ultimately comes from other ratepayers in Texas."

Bitcoin Miners Are Gobbling up Energy in Texas. We Are Not Any Closer to Finding out Exactly How Much. - Public Citizenwww.citizen.org Last August, during a punishing summer heat wave, Riot Platforms was bringing in taxpayer money for essentially doing nothing. How…

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Prof. Bob Howarth

"It might be years before researchers establish a precise death toll in Gaza but what’s clear is that the continuing (Israeli) campaign of direct and indirect violence will have a toll far beyond the immediate catastrophe." This could be the highest indirect death toll of conflict in recent years.

Why researchers fear the Gaza death toll could reach 186,000www.theguardian.com War doesn’t just kill people through direct violence. Malnutrition, healthcare shortages and unsanitary conditions inevitably follow

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Prof. Bob Howarth

Wow: “If you grow an acre of corn, it will produce 900 gallons of ethanol, which will get you about 25,000 miles for a Ford F-150...which is, not bad I guess. But let’s say we put solar on that same acre. It will produce enough electricity every year to drive my Lightning 550,000 miles.”

Forty Acres and a Sense of Hopesubstack.com Sunshine on a Cloudy Week