Wind and Solar Are Crushing Fossil Fuels

Stephan:  The greed of the petroleum industry combined with the rapidly evolving technologies of the renewables is creating the momentum of the transition out of carbon energy, and it is happening faster than anyone anticipated.
renewables charts

Renewables are beating fossil fuels 2 to 1

Wind and solar have grown seemingly unstoppable.

While two years of crashing prices for oil, natural gas, and coal triggered dramatic downsizing in those industries, renewables have been thriving. Clean energy investment broke new records in 2015 and is now seeing twice as much global funding as fossil fuels.

One reason is that renewable energy is becoming ever cheaper to produce. Recent solar and wind auctions in Mexico and Morocco ended with winning bids from companies that promised to produce electricity at the cheapest rate, from any source, anywhere in the world, said Michael Liebreich, chairman of the advisory board for Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).

“We’re in a low-cost-of-oil environment for the foreseeable future,” Liebreich said during his keynote address at the BNEF Summit in New York on Tuesday. “Did that stop renewable energy investment? Not at all.”

Here’s what’s shaping power markets, in six charts from BNEF:

Government subsidies have helped wind and solar get a foothold in global power markets, but economies of scale are the true driver of falling prices: The cost of solar power has fallen to 1/150th of its level in […]

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Climate change threatens hearts, lungs but also brains: US study

Stephan:  Climate change will have many consequences most of which we are just beginning to comprehend. Here are some of the health issues that will affect each of us.

Body outlineWASHINGTON – Climate change can be expected to boost the number of annual premature U.S. deaths from heat waves in coming decades and to increase mental health problems from extreme weather like hurricanes and floods, a U.S. study said on Monday.

“I don’t know that we’ve seen something like this before, where we have a force that has such a multitude of effects,” Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told reporters at the White House about the study. “There’s not one single source that we can target with climate change, there are multiple paths that we have to address.”

Heat waves were estimated to cause 670 to 1,300 U.S. deaths annually in recent years. Premature U.S. deaths from heat waves can be expected to rise more than 27,000 per year by 2100, from a 1990 baseline, one scenario in the study said. The rise outpaced projected decreases in deaths from extreme cold.
Extreme heat can cause more forest fires and increase pollen counts and the resulting poor air quality threatens people with asthma and other lung conditions. The report said poor air quality will likely lead to […]

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Tesla Model 3 deposits now 300,000 or more; what does this imply?

Stephan:  This story isn't getting much coverage in the corporate media but I think it represents a very important data point telling us something about the transition out of carbon energy as a source of transportation. Tesla, a company based on the premise that you can increase social and planetary wellness and still make buckets of money, sold over $10 billion dollars worth of Tesla 3s online in 36 hours; a car that won't even exist for another two years.  In one stroke Tesla sold more electric cars than Detroit has sold in the past five years.  

 

Tesla Model 3 prototype

Tesla Model 3 prototype

Three days ago, when Global Equities Research projected more than 300,000 reservations for the Tesla Model 3 electric car by the start of this week, that number seemed outlandish

And yet, by the end of Saturday, the global total had reached 276,000, according to a tweet by Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

When the Model 3 was first unveiled in California on Thursday evening, the number of deposits that day alone had already crossed 100,000.

With an additional day and a half, Saturday’s total of 276,000 has likely crossed the magic 300,000 mark by now unless the pace has suddenly slowed to a crawl.

And that clearly caught even Tesla off guard, with Musk tweeting that the company would have to rethink its production plans for the 215-mile, $35,000 electric car that won’t hit the roads for almost two years under a best-case scenario.

Musk promised one more report on reservation totals, this one to come exactly a week after the Thursday evening introduction.

Mississippi Governor Signs ‘Religious Freedom’ Bill Into Law

Stephan:  The chasm being created by the Great Schism Trend becomes ever deeper. Mississippi, another Red value state, its voters, legislature, and governor have chosen hate over tolerance and love. It will be interesting to see what effect this has on the state; whether businesses leave, or don't come in the first place; whether there is an emigration of tolerant people and LGBT people; and, the impact of this new hate law on the state's colleges and universities. It is worth noting that Mississippi is essentially a second world culture that could not maintain its hateful Theocratic Rightist policies if the state were not subsidized by the Blue value states -- Mississippi gets $3 in benefits from the Federal government for every $1 it pays in via taxes. And finally, let me say very explicitly there is nothing anti-Christian in my statements concerning this and the following two stories. In my view, the Christianity of my youth has largely disappeared in the U.S. replaced by a weird, hateful, racist, anti-intellectual premillennial dispensationalism that labels itself Christianity but which, in fact, has virtually nothing to do with Jesus' very simple and straightforward message of love, equality, and inclusion. I am not interested in your label, I am interested in your intentions and the things you support.
Mississippi Republican Governor Phil Bryant

Mississippi Republican Governor Phil Bryant

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant has signed a controversial “religious freedom” bill into law.

The legislation, HB 1523, promises that the state government will not punish people who refuse to provide services to people because of a religious opposition to same-sex marriage, extramarital sex or transgender people.

Supporters say it protects the rights of people who are opposed to homosexuality but who now live in a country where same-sex marriage is a legal right.

Opponents say the law amounts to a state sanction for open discrimination.

In a statement on Twitter, Bryant said he signed the bill into law “to protect sincerely held religious beliefs and moral convictions … from discriminatory action by state government.”

He said the new law “merely reinforces” […]

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Christian Universities Increasingly Apply for Exemptions From Anti-Discrimination Rules

Stephan:  The hate and conflicted sexuality that is an important part of Theocratic Rightism has become a major factor in religious affiliated universities. Here is a report that lays out the major issues in this trend.

Carson-Newman logoSix months after the US Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage, Dr. Randall O’Brien, president of Carson-Newman University in Jefferson City, Tennessee, told the local CBS affiliate that “in a changing world, we want to reaffirm who we are, who we intend to be, and establish our identity as a religious school, a Christian school.”

O’Brien was gleefully explaining that the 165-year-old college, established as Mossy Creek Missionary Baptist Seminary in 1851, had just been granted a US Department of Education (DOE) exemption from Title IX regulations, in effect allowing the university to continue to collect federal dollars for scholarships and sports programs despite banning unmarried, pregnant students; women who have had abortions; single mothers; and LGBTQ people from attending classes or working on campus.

Since 2013, 56 religiously affiliated colleges and universities have been granted Title IX exemptions.

This was not Carson-Newman’s first foray into regulating the behavior of students, faculty or staff, or in imposing a set of religious restrictions on those connected to it. Far from it. Prior to obtaining the Title IX exemption last December, the campus code […]

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