27th August 2019 - brighter than usual
27th August 2019 – Brian’s Musings – Brighter than Usual
People Change:
Medical researchers have found a vaccine against the Ebola virus which is proving effective in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Burundi is coping with a malaria outbreak which is even more deadly than the DRC’s Ebola outbreak. The outbreak has been attributed to low use of preventative measures, a vulnerable population with low levels of resistance, an increase in drug resistant strains of the disease and mosquitoes with more aggressive feeding habits reaching higher altitudes.
Nigeria, the last country in Africa with polio cases, is on the verge of becoming polio free.
In a paper in the European Respiratory Journal, researchers concluded that almost 67,000 new cases of asthma in children across 18 European countries could be prevented every year if levels of PM2.5 particulates and NO2 polluting the air are cut to recommended levels.
Outdoor Air Pollution and the Burden of Childhood Asthma across Europe
https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2019/07/08/13993003.02194-2018
Climate Change and the Environment:
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change and Land, concludes that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land. Humans now exploit 72% of the planet’s ice-free surface to feed, clothe and support Earth’s growing population. Agriculture, forestry and other land use produces almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Half of all emissions of methane come from cattle and rice fields, while deforestation and the removal of peat lands cause further significant levels of carbon emissions. The report concludes that peat lands will need to be restored by halting drainage schemes; meat consumption will have to be cut; and food waste will have to be reduced.
https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl-report-download-page/
According to a new report from the American Meteorological Society and the US government, 2018 greenhouse gas levels topped 60 years of modern measurements and 800,000 years of ice core data. The global annual average for carbon dioxide was 407.4 ppm, 2.4 ppm higher than in 2017. The report finds 2018 was the fourth-warmest on record since the mid-to-late- 1800s. Temperatures were .3C to .4C higher than the average between 1981 and 2010.
Research published in Nature showed that the rate of modern global sea level rise began accelerating in the 1960s and not the 1990s as many previously thought. Sea level rise acceleration in the 1960s was likely caused by warming sea water expanding, while glacier melt overtook thermal expansion as the dominant influence in the 1990s. Sea levels are now rising at around 3.4mm per year, and could get to 10mm per year by the end of the century.
Persistent acceleration in global sea-level rise since the 1960s
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0531-8.epdf
Alaska recorded its warmest month ever in July 2019, with the coastline left completely barren of sea ice.
Satellite data show more than 74,000 fires burning in the Amazon jungle.
According to the Australian Institute, Australia is the third largest CO2 emissions exporter after Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Food and Water
An American research team has found the most efficient locations for agrivoltaics, where crops are grown beneath solar panels, include western America, southern Africa and the Middle East.
The World Bank has issued a global water quality report which, inter alia, concludes that water pollution retards economic growth; nitrogen in water shortens people and their lives; and increasing salinity reduces agricultural production.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/08/20/quality-unknown
The World Health Organization published a curious report on the impact of microplastics in drinking water which implied there were no health threats; however closer reading shows very little research had been conducted on this topic anywhere.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
According to a new report by BNP Paribas Asset Management, renewable energy offers more advantages than simply mitigating climate change as electricity is easier to transport than oil, and wind and solar electricity prices are much more stable than volatile oil prices. They conclude that major producers will need to reduce oil prices below US$ 20 to compete with clean energy in the transport sector.
https://docfinder.bnpparibas-am.com/api/files/1094E5B9-2FAA-47A3-805D-EF65EAD09A7F
Saudi Arabia’s 400MW Dumat Al Jandal onshore wind farm will produce a world record-low onshore wind levellised cost of electricity of 1.99 US cents per kilowatt-hour.
An analysis of 29 American fracking-focused companies produced by the Sightline Institute and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis showed aggregate negative cash flows of US$ 184 billion between 2010 and early 2019. Since 2015, 174 North American oil and gas producers have filed for bankruptcy protection, according to law firm Haynes & Boone, restructuring nearly US$ 100 billion in debt largely through write-offs. Bankruptcies will continue as oil and gas borrowers must repay or refinance several hundred billion dollars of debt over the next six months. Meanwhile, natural gas production has boomed, creating a glut, and deepening the financial distress for oil and gas producers around the world.
Poor results and a declining share price have caused ExxonMobil to fall out of the S&P top ten companies after being there for more than forty years. ExxonMobil is one of the companies burning cash in the fracking sector.
Coal generation in the European Union collapsed by 19% in the first half of 2019, according to climate think-tank Sandbag, which reported declines in almost every coal-burning country.
Automation Based Unemployment
Research by Michael Koch, Ilya Manuylov and Marcel Smolka using Spanish data from 1990 to 2016 showed that companies that employed robots tended to also show an increase in employment while those that avoided robots tended to see a reduction in employment. (Of course, this might be because the robot adopting companies were able to lower costs and prices and thus increase sales, while the non adopters became steadily uncompetitive).
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
Sales of electric cars in Europe during the first half of 2019 were 79% higher than during the same period in 2018. Germany now has more electric cars than Norway (but then it does have a much larger population). Tesla, BMW and Hyundai were the most popular brands.
According to Wood Mackenzie, by 2030 copper demand for electric vehicles and charging systems will increase 250% from its current level.
Amazon’s autonomous robots are now delivering packages in California
Increasing Inequality
An article on Universal Basic Income in the London Review of Books makes the interesting observation that at a time when lifelong re-education is being mooted, a Universal Basic Income would allow people to take regular breaks from paid employment.
Southern Africa
According to Greenpeace, the area around Eskom’s Kriel-based power stations is the second largest sulphur dioxide hotspot on the globe, surpassed only by Russia’s Norilsk.
Sasol currently produces 67.4 million tons of carbon pollution, according to its 2018 figures, and its Mpumalanga plant at Secunda is the largest single-point CO2 emitter on the planet. Sasol also ranks among the top 100 fossil fuel companies linked to 71% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, according to the Carbon Majors Report.
People Change:
Medical researchers have found a vaccine against the Ebola virus which is proving effective in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Burundi is coping with a malaria outbreak which is even more deadly than the DRC’s Ebola outbreak. The outbreak has been attributed to low use of preventative measures, a vulnerable population with low levels of resistance, an increase in drug resistant strains of the disease and mosquitoes with more aggressive feeding habits reaching higher altitudes.
Nigeria, the last country in Africa with polio cases, is on the verge of becoming polio free.
In a paper in the European Respiratory Journal, researchers concluded that almost 67,000 new cases of asthma in children across 18 European countries could be prevented every year if levels of PM2.5 particulates and NO2 polluting the air are cut to recommended levels.
Outdoor Air Pollution and the Burden of Childhood Asthma across Europe
https://erj.ersjournals.com/content/early/2019/07/08/13993003.02194-2018
Climate Change and the Environment:
The latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Climate Change and Land, concludes that it will be impossible to keep global temperatures at safe levels unless there is also a transformation in the way the world produces food and manages land. Humans now exploit 72% of the planet’s ice-free surface to feed, clothe and support Earth’s growing population. Agriculture, forestry and other land use produces almost a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. Half of all emissions of methane come from cattle and rice fields, while deforestation and the removal of peat lands cause further significant levels of carbon emissions. The report concludes that peat lands will need to be restored by halting drainage schemes; meat consumption will have to be cut; and food waste will have to be reduced.
https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl-report-download-page/
According to a new report from the American Meteorological Society and the US government, 2018 greenhouse gas levels topped 60 years of modern measurements and 800,000 years of ice core data. The global annual average for carbon dioxide was 407.4 ppm, 2.4 ppm higher than in 2017. The report finds 2018 was the fourth-warmest on record since the mid-to-late- 1800s. Temperatures were .3C to .4C higher than the average between 1981 and 2010.
Research published in Nature showed that the rate of modern global sea level rise began accelerating in the 1960s and not the 1990s as many previously thought. Sea level rise acceleration in the 1960s was likely caused by warming sea water expanding, while glacier melt overtook thermal expansion as the dominant influence in the 1990s. Sea levels are now rising at around 3.4mm per year, and could get to 10mm per year by the end of the century.
Persistent acceleration in global sea-level rise since the 1960s
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0531-8.epdf
Alaska recorded its warmest month ever in July 2019, with the coastline left completely barren of sea ice.
Satellite data show more than 74,000 fires burning in the Amazon jungle.
According to the Australian Institute, Australia is the third largest CO2 emissions exporter after Russia and Saudi Arabia.
Food and Water
An American research team has found the most efficient locations for agrivoltaics, where crops are grown beneath solar panels, include western America, southern Africa and the Middle East.
The World Bank has issued a global water quality report which, inter alia, concludes that water pollution retards economic growth; nitrogen in water shortens people and their lives; and increasing salinity reduces agricultural production.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/08/20/quality-unknown
The World Health Organization published a curious report on the impact of microplastics in drinking water which implied there were no health threats; however closer reading shows very little research had been conducted on this topic anywhere.
Low Cost Renewable Energy
According to a new report by BNP Paribas Asset Management, renewable energy offers more advantages than simply mitigating climate change as electricity is easier to transport than oil, and wind and solar electricity prices are much more stable than volatile oil prices. They conclude that major producers will need to reduce oil prices below US$ 20 to compete with clean energy in the transport sector.
https://docfinder.bnpparibas-am.com/api/files/1094E5B9-2FAA-47A3-805D-EF65EAD09A7F
Saudi Arabia’s 400MW Dumat Al Jandal onshore wind farm will produce a world record-low onshore wind levellised cost of electricity of 1.99 US cents per kilowatt-hour.
An analysis of 29 American fracking-focused companies produced by the Sightline Institute and the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis showed aggregate negative cash flows of US$ 184 billion between 2010 and early 2019. Since 2015, 174 North American oil and gas producers have filed for bankruptcy protection, according to law firm Haynes & Boone, restructuring nearly US$ 100 billion in debt largely through write-offs. Bankruptcies will continue as oil and gas borrowers must repay or refinance several hundred billion dollars of debt over the next six months. Meanwhile, natural gas production has boomed, creating a glut, and deepening the financial distress for oil and gas producers around the world.
Poor results and a declining share price have caused ExxonMobil to fall out of the S&P top ten companies after being there for more than forty years. ExxonMobil is one of the companies burning cash in the fracking sector.
Coal generation in the European Union collapsed by 19% in the first half of 2019, according to climate think-tank Sandbag, which reported declines in almost every coal-burning country.
Automation Based Unemployment
Research by Michael Koch, Ilya Manuylov and Marcel Smolka using Spanish data from 1990 to 2016 showed that companies that employed robots tended to also show an increase in employment while those that avoided robots tended to see a reduction in employment. (Of course, this might be because the robot adopting companies were able to lower costs and prices and thus increase sales, while the non adopters became steadily uncompetitive).
Autonomous Electric Vehicles
Sales of electric cars in Europe during the first half of 2019 were 79% higher than during the same period in 2018. Germany now has more electric cars than Norway (but then it does have a much larger population). Tesla, BMW and Hyundai were the most popular brands.
According to Wood Mackenzie, by 2030 copper demand for electric vehicles and charging systems will increase 250% from its current level.
Amazon’s autonomous robots are now delivering packages in California
Increasing Inequality
An article on Universal Basic Income in the London Review of Books makes the interesting observation that at a time when lifelong re-education is being mooted, a Universal Basic Income would allow people to take regular breaks from paid employment.
Southern Africa
According to Greenpeace, the area around Eskom’s Kriel-based power stations is the second largest sulphur dioxide hotspot on the globe, surpassed only by Russia’s Norilsk.
Sasol currently produces 67.4 million tons of carbon pollution, according to its 2018 figures, and its Mpumalanga plant at Secunda is the largest single-point CO2 emitter on the planet. Sasol also ranks among the top 100 fossil fuel companies linked to 71% of global industrial greenhouse gas emissions since 1988, according to the Carbon Majors Report.
Proudly powered by Weebly