Thursday November 21st… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😉
Main Topic: Relying On Coal As An Economic Quick Fix…Case In Point China
In this short sighted, bottom line, capitalistic world during economic downturns nations containing politicians sometimes panic, doing everything they can to satiate common people to retain power. There are a few tricks, such as Keynesian measures, that can be employed by governments to keep economies floating such that most of the general population doesn’t get hurt. The United States employed these to stimulate the economy back during the Great Depression of the 1930s and most recently during the Great Recession of 2008/09. Mostly these are desperation moves with governments doing anything they can to avoid rioting in the streets, and if republics or democracies, retribution at voting polls.
And yes, thankfully politicians and governments, for the most part in this day and age, are trying to ease the pain from the downside of capitalism for many.
What would happen to environmental measures during an economic downturn in 2019 to any major worldwide “Green New Deal” reforms go through legislatures?
It’s human nature to be short sighted, so if people and countries think that “brown energy,” i.e. coal, oil, and gas, can quickly pull an economy out of the doldrums they will at least temporarily scrap plans that in the longer run will prove much more beneficial. So today we have a case in point via Inside Climate News, China:
Due to copywrite I will not repost any of this relatively short article, but please click on Jeff’s tweet to read its details. Essentially China figures to goose its sagging economy by building more coal fired electricity generating plants. Such plans would further derail the Paris Accord plans to keep the planet below +2.0°C above preindustrial conditions, not to mention clogging China’s already unhealthy cities with more choking air pollution.
Well, such is the case for this ill advised plan…just sayin’. The Climate Guy sincerely hopes that China will remain strong economically such that desperate brown energy measures won’t be taken, and that its people will be prosperous and happy with much more freedom from reprisal as has been demonstrated in Hong Kong recently by awful violence. Perhaps this is just my wishful thinking, though. One more thing to think about…Certainly Trump’s Tariff measures against China are not helping this matter. I will keep all informed of these foreboding plans as we move into the year 2020.
Here is more climate and weather news from Thursday:
(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article.)
(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.)
Guy Walton- “The Climate Guy”