QUICK NEWS, July 29: A Conservative’s Climate Crisis Fight; New Energy Holding The Lead

A Conservative’s Climate Crisis Fight Against Climate Panic, for Climate Hope

David French, July 25, 2019 (National Review)

“We must craft a conservative, ecomodernist vision of environmental action…[W]e are in a crisis, an emergency. And my kid won’t solve it, and your kid won’t solve it. If they are empaths they will feel just as trapped as I do, just as complicit in something they cannot solve — and they will pollute and harm and gobble up the world because that is what it means to live in the 21st century…I cried two times when my daughter was born. First for joy, when after 27 hours of labor the little feral being we’d made came yowling into the world, and the second for sorrow, holding the earth’s newest human and looking out the window with her at the rows of cars in the hospital parking lot, the strip mall across the street, the box stores and drive-throughs and drainage ditches and asphalt and waste fields that had once been oak groves. A world of extinction and catastrophe, a world in which harmony with nature had long been foreclosed… I could see no way to shield her from the future…

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…I’m reminded of the nuclear fears that haunted my generation…[But] there’s a key difference between climate-change anxiety and nuclear anxiety: There is far more cause for hope for the future now…We did not have concrete reason to hope for the peace that did, in fact, come…[One does not have to buy the doomsday scenarios] to be concerned about humanity’s impact on the climate and the climate’s impact on humans…The same human ingenuity and industry that has extended life expectancies, slashed extreme poverty by 74 percent in 25 years, and also reduced carbon emissions in numerous advanced economies can advance the twin, interconnected goals of human flourishing and planetary flourishing…[There is] ample room for political disagreement about costs, approach, and policy…[A] challenge exists but…panic is counterproductive and polarization should be shunned…[Our] ingenuity and creativity can craft the instruments of our own environmental rescue.” click here for more

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New Energy Holding The Lead EIA's Latest "Electric Power Monthly" Report: Second Month In A Row, Renewables Top Coal; Year To Date: Renewables Exceed 20.3% Of U.S. Electricity And Outpace Nuclear/Solar Surpasses 2.5% Of Total As Wind Overtakes Hydropower

Ken Bossong, July 29, 2019 (Sun Day)

“Renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) accounted for more than a fifth (20.3%) of net domestic electrical generation during the first five months of 2019…[S]olar and wind both showed continued growth…Solar, including small-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) systems, increased by 10.9% compared to the first five months of 2018 and accounted for 2.6% of the nation's total net generation…Small-scale solar (e.g., distributed rooftop systems) - which increased by 20.2% - provided a third (33.3%) of total solar electrical generation…U.S. wind-generated electricity topped that provided by hydropower by 2.7%. Wind's share was 8.0% of total electrical output vs. 7.8% from hydropower…

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Combined wind and solar accounted for 10.6% of U.S. electrical generation through the end of May. In addition, biomass provided 1.5% and geothermal contributed a bit more than 0.4%...[F]or the five-month period, electricity from renewable energy sources surpassed that from nuclear power (331,613 vs. 331,200 thousand megawatt-hours). In May alone, renewably-generated electricity exceeded nuclear's output by almost 10% (i.e., 9.9%)…[F]or the second month in a row, renewably-generated electricity exceeded that from coal (73,779 vs. 71,988 thousand megawatt-hours)…[R]enewables for the first time moved into second place [for the month] among the major generating sources…exceeded only by natural gas…” click here for more

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