{"id":21467,"date":"2016-07-17T16:36:37","date_gmt":"2016-07-17T21:36:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21467"},"modified":"2016-07-17T16:36:54","modified_gmt":"2016-07-17T21:36:54","slug":"tomgram-michael-klare-fossil-fuels-forever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=21467","title":{"rendered":"Tomgram: Michael Klare, Fossil Fuels Forever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomgram: Michael Klare, Fossil Fuels Forever<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n

Think of them as omens of our age.\u00a0 While global temperatures have been soaring lately — May was the\u00a013th month<\/a>\u00a0in a row to break all-time heat records — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just reported, more parochially, that this was the\u00a0hottest June<\/a>\u00a0on record for the lower 48 states. (USA! USA!)\u00a0 No state came in\u00a0below the norm<\/a>\u00a0and in the West and Southwest, it was\u00a0hot as hell<\/a>. Record hot.<\/p>\n

Then consider this: Arctic summer sea ice is\u00a0heading for oblivion<\/a>\u00a0at a remarkable pace (which, since ice reflects sunlight, means that those waters will now be absorbing yet more heat).\u00a0 In June, that ice was disappearing at a rate 70% faster than the norm.\u00a0 Looked at over the longer term, as Suzanne Goldenberg of the\u00a0Guardian<\/em>\u00a0explained<\/a>, \u201ca vast expanse of ice — an area about twice the size of Texas — has vanished over the past 30 years, and the rate of that retreat has accelerated.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the way, if you want to keep your eye on the horizon for future such omens, a possible 2016 record is already looming when it comes to billion-dollar-plus weather disasters with\u00a0eight<\/a>\u00a0of them so far this year. The average had once been five annually, but in recent years has been\u00a0around<\/a>\u00a011.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ll excuse a mixed (but appropriate) metaphor, given the subject\u00a0TomDispatch<\/em>\u00a0regular<\/a>Michael Klare takes up today, there seem to be an awful lot of canaries in the coal mines at the moment, and wherever you turn, they\u2019re expiring. Klare\u2019s latest report on our fossil-fueled planet suggests that the use of coal, oil, and natural gas will not fall, but actually continue to rise in the next decades and so, of omens, there will be plenty to come.\u00a0Tom<\/em><\/p>\n

Hooked!\u00a0<\/strong>
\nThe Unyielding Grip of Fossil Fuels on Global Life
\n<\/strong>
\nHere\u2019s the good news: wind power, solar power, and other renewable forms of energy are expanding far more quickly than anyone expected, ensuring that these systems will provide an ever-increasing share of our future energy supply.\u00a0 According to the most recent projections from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy, global consumption of wind, solar, hydropower, and other renewables will\u00a0double<\/a>between now and 2040, jumping from 64 to 131 quadrillion British thermal units (BTUs).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomgram: Michael Klare, Fossil Fuels Forever Think of them as omens of our age.\u00a0 While global temperatures have been soaring lately — May was the\u00a013th month\u00a0in a row to break all-time heat records — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration just reported, more parochially, that this was the\u00a0hottest June\u00a0on record for the lower 48 states. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[141,328,8103,6462],"class_list":["post-21467","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-climate-change","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-michael-klare","tag-tomgram"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21467","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21467"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21467\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21469,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21467\/revisions\/21469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}