... "There was a lot of pressure on us to change the heat generation to new sources, especially renewable sources," explains Mr Hack as he discusses the decommissioning of coal-fired units at the Mannheim plant. The site is right by the Rhine, already has a hefty electricity grid connection, and is plugged in to the district heating network, so it makes sense to install the heat pumps..."

... Installations such as this are not cheap...

... "Heat pumps and district heating systems are a great fit." Such systems can harvest heat from bodies of water or even wastewater from sewage treatment plants.

Dr Wilk notes that, when you use multiple large heat pumps on a district heating network, you gain flexibility and efficiency. You could run two out of four heat pumps in the autumn, say, when less heat is required than during the depths of winter...

... Helsinki is in the process of radically overhauling its district heating system. The city has added heat pumps, biomass burners and electric boilers to a 1,400km network that links up nearly 90% of buildings in the Finnish capital ... can help to soak up surplus renewables and provide an electricity grid-balancing function...

... One of the biggest issues was the $45tn a year in environmental damage caused by the burning of coal, oil and gas, and the pollution and destruction of nature caused by industrial agriculture, the report said. The food system carried the largest costs, at $20tn, with transport at $13tn and fossil-fuel powered electricity at $12tn.

These costs – called "externalities" by economists – must be priced into energy and food to reflect their real price and shift consumers towards greener choices...

... Removing fossil fuel subsidies could cut emissions by a third...

So... How do we kick our Governments into accepting the Inconvenient Truth of the reality of the subsidies we are all paying to the Big Oil to kill us all in multiple deadly greedy profitable ways?...


The time is now.

It would be interesting to know what proportion of the automotive pollution is down to the USA and China.

... The role of transportation is a significant part ... because that sector is the largest emitter of global warming emissions in the country, having surpassed the power sector in 2017. These emissions, which in 2022 were 37.4 percent of US CO2 emissions, are all from fossil fuel combustion in our vehicles, with the vast majority coming from pick-up trucks, SUVs and cars...

... Transportation’s disproportionate contribution to local pollution is further evidenced by the fact that up to 45 percent of NOx and up to one-third of VOCs from all sources comes from on-road vehicles. Medium and large trucks, which make up just 1 in 10 vehicles on our roads, contribute disproportionately to 58 percent of the ozone-forming nitrogen oxides and 52 percent of PM2.5 emissions...

... The country accounted for 11% of the world's transportation emissions in 2018 — second only to the United States, which produced 21% of the total...

... China can cut its road transportation emissions by up to 95% over the next 40 years while also improving air quality...

The electric car market is booming – [except,] just not in the United States...

... the Trump administration has implemented policies and regulatory changes that have slammed the brakes on a shift to EVs.

As a result, many developing nations in regions like Southeast Asia are passing the U.S. in EV adoption, while China and a number of European countries like Norway (as Will Ferrell comedically informed us in a GM advertisement) are leaving the rest of the world in their dust. On the sales side, China’s advanced EV manufacturing has allowed the country to take the lead in global auto exports.

Road transportation accounts for about 12% of global climate emissions. So electric vehicles are a key climate solution...

Toffee Crisp and Blue Riband bars can no longer be called chocolate after maker Nestle changed their recipes...

... Nestle is not alone in recent reformulations.

In October, McVitie's Penguin and Club bars switched to be labelled as as "chocolate flavour" because the amount of cocoa they contain has been reduced after parent company Pladis chose to use cheaper alternatives...

"RFK Jr.'s hand picked Star Wars bar scene advisory panel."

Consequences:

Humour not Hate!

Much of the £10.9bn [£10900 MILLION] in taxpayer money lost to fraud and error...

... It found £13.6bn was spent on PPE procurement, with 38 billion items purchased - although 11 billion were unused by 2024. Losses were estimated at £10bn from over-ordering and £324m of fraud...

A key UN report on the state of the global environment has been "hijacked" by the United States and other countries who were unwilling to go along with the scientific findings, the co-chair has told the BBC...

... a "dire future" for millions unless there's a rapid move away from coal, oil and gas and fossil fuel subsidies.

But at a meeting with government representatives to agree the findings, the US and allies said they could not go along with a summary of the report's conclusions.

As the scientists were unwilling to water down or change their findings, the report has now been published without the summary and without the support of governments...

Is this a Boeing problem?

Or an Air India problem?

Fear, suspicion, naming convenient culprits. What the evidence points to so far seems unimaginable to many.

Only a final report will hopefully put an end to this.

So many 787 Dreamliners in scheduled service worldwide...

... Or a consequence of 'something else'?...

Nothing should ever be ruled out in aviation safety; but what else could have caused it?

... The Foundation for Aviation Safety claimed the aircraft, which went down in Ethiopia in 2019, had suffered a number of issues, including an "uncommanded roll" at low altitude.

The organisation said more than 1,000 planes currently flying could potentially be at risk of electrical failures as a result of production problems...

... An electrical problem that led to dozens of Boeing 737 MAX jets being suspended from service has widened after engineers found similar grounding flaws elsewhere in the cockpit...

... U.S. air safety officials have asked Boeing Co (BA.N), opens new tab to supply fresh analysis and documentation showing numerous 737 MAX subsystems would not be affected by electrical grounding issues first flagged in three areas of the jet...

Amid concerns over greenhouse gas emissions, the Trump administration has abolished climate-friendly farming incentives...

... the US’s obsession with corn has a steep price: the fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water.

Corn is essential to the rural economy and to the world’s food supply, and researchers say the problem isn’t the corn itself. It’s how we grow it.

Corn farmers rely on heavy fertilizer use to sustain today’s high yields. And when the nitrogen in the fertilizer breaks down in the soil, it releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Producing nitrogen fertilizer also emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, adding to its climate footprint.

The corn and ethanol industries insist that rapid growth in ethanol...

... Industry is also pushing for ethanol-based jet fuel and higher-ethanol gasoline blends...

... corn uses more than two-thirds of all nitrogen fertilizer nationwide – making it the leading driver of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions...

... The environmental costs of corn rarely make headlines or factor into political debates. Much of the dynamic traces back to federal policy – and to the powerful corn and ethanol lobby that helped shape it...

... Many [USA farmers] plant corn year after year on the same land. The practice, called “continuous corn”, demands massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and drives especially high nitrous oxide emissions...

... solar panels can generate as much energy as corn ethanol [whilst requiring just] roughly 3% of the land [compared to a corn ethanol crop].

“It’s just a terrible use of land...”

Fertilising arable land with human waste leaves array of toxins [to] re-enter food chain

... including pharmaceutical products and toxins that were banned decades ago...

... Soil pollution is understudied compared with wastewater and river research, despite soil being so important for human and environmental health, and the fact contaminants can persist for decades...

... It is not the fault of farmers for spreading this, she said, as it is what they have been told to do in order to be sustainable.

“We need to regulate for them properly and we need education to make sure that everybody knows what is being applied and what the potential risks are that are associated with that,”...