Occasional faded sunshine this early Thursday on California’s north coast, a quick-respite from rainstorms, and though the clouds are still thick and gray, those gusto winds have really evaporated.
Last night, I dozed off into sleep with some turbulent, wind-driven rain hammering my apartment, but woke to an easy-calm daybreak.
Clear skies by Wednesday — supposedly.
(Illustration: ‘Canal Bridge,’ by LS Lowry, found here).
Purportedly, too, earth had a habitable future, likewise, apparently the shit-fan is reportedly closer than we figured.
Not good news at all, but a precursor…
From the Guardian yesterday afternoon:
The world is on track to reach dangerous levels of global warming much sooner than expected, according to new Australian research that highlights the alarming implications of rising energy demand.
University of Queensland and Griffith University researchers have developed a “global energy tracker” which predicts average world temperatures could climb 1.5C above pre-industrial levels by 2020.
That forecast, based on new modelling using long-term average projections on economic growth, population growth and energy use per person, points to a 2C rise by 2030.
Ben Hankamer, from UQ’s institute for molecular bioscience, and the gut-downer: ‘“The more the economy grows, the more energy you use … the conclusion really is that economists and environmentalists are on the same side and have both come to the same conclusion: we’ve got to act now and we don’t have much time.”‘
And the bottom line:
Hankamer said the fact that about 80 percent of the world’s energy was for fuel, and only 20 percent for electricity, meant “we don’t have any easy solutions”.
“If we want to do this, we need to do things like solar fuels, or think about how we do battery technologies and fully transition to electric,” he said.
“The things that are going to be hard to replace are aviation fuels and things for heavy machinery and probably shipping.
“We can do electric cars for short runs but those things are going to be really hard to switch.”
As an old guy with a frame-reference on time, I can tell you, 2020 is just a few heartbeats away…