2021 Fossilised Capital: Price and Profit in the Energy Transition

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13563467.2021.1926957

The article proceeds in three sections. For guidance on understanding the economic drivers of capitalist energy transitions, the first section looks primarily to history: that profit, rather than price, is in fact the critical factor, is the lesson of ground-breaking recent research into the ascendancy of fossil fuels during the formative stages of the Industrial Revolution. The first section also situates the article in relation to the existing literature on energy transition. The second section prepares the ground for the analysis of contemporary oil-major strategies by providing a brief overview of the economics of renewable energy production and considering important recent market developments bearing on those economics. The final section examines recent announcements by BP, Shell and Total as to their own respective transition plans. It argues that there are good reasons to be sceptical even of what are, in reality, relatively modest ambitions for transition and thus emissions reduction – and that close attention to the protagonists’ own discussion of their investment priorities underlines why.

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Btw maličkost, vadí ti, že panel ipcc nikdo nečte a kdo ho čte mu nedokáže porozumět. Stejně tak ten, kdo nemá angličtinu v malíku si ze všech tvých linků nic neodnese, protože se jima ani nebude zatěžovat, protože jim nerozumí.

who cares

Arctic sea ice thinning twice as fast as thought, study finds | Arctic | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/04/arctic-sea-ice-thinning-twice-as-fast-as-thought-study-finds

“Sea ice has begun forming later and later in the year, so the snow on top has less time to accumulate,” said Mallett. “Our calculations account for this declining snow depth for the first time.” The research is published in the journal The Cryosphere.

“We are still learning about the changes to the Arctic environment, and one of the big unknowns – or less well-knowns – is snow cover,” said Walt Meier, at the US National Snow and Ice Data Center, and not involved in the new research. “The approach in the study is a significant improvement over older methods, and the results fit with other changes we’re seeing with Arctic sea ice, including earlier melt onset, lower summer ice cover, and later freeze-up.”

...

Prof Julienne Stroeve, at UCL, said: “There are [still] a number of uncertainties but we believe our new calculations are a major step forward. We hope this work can be used to improve climate models that forecast the effects of long-term climate change in the Arctic – a region that is warming at three times the global rate and whose ice is essential for keeping the planet cool.”

TC - Faster decline and higher variability in the sea ice thickness of the marginal Arctic seas when accounting for dynamic snow cover
https://tc.copernicus.org/articles/15/2429/2021/

JIMIQ: Aha, ne tak kecam. Mas pravdu ty (spatne jsem si to prelozil)

JIMIQ: 150gw (+95 gw vetru)

TADEAS:

Kai Heron
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1400799563292811267.html


Brazil on drought alert, faces worst dry spell in 91 years | Successful Farming
https://www.agriculture.com/markets/newswire/update-2-brazil-on-drought-alert-faces-worst-dry-spell-in-91-years

3 Big Things Today, June 2, 2021 | Successful Farming
https://www.agriculture.com/news/three-big-things/3-big-things-today-june-2-2021

The situation isn’t looking good. Already this year farmers from Canada to California have experienced droughts and the US’ soy growing states have been been hit hard. So guess what? The price of soy is rising.

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As the climate crisis escalates, it’s not hard to imagine droughts hitting Brazil and the US simultaneously, devastating corn and soy yields, and sending food prices spiralling upwards.

Recall that the Arab Spring was in part initiated by rising food prices – by a crisis in labour's reproduction within the circuits of capital – to get a sense of where this can go.

That’s one thread we can pull on. One series of tentacular relations. There are others. One is that the drought has reduced Brazil’s hydropower capacity to such an extent that the country is importing natural gas to cover the deficit. -- https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Brazils-Worst-Drought-In-91-Years-Is-Good-News-For-LNG.amp.html

That’s more carbon produced in transnational shipping and logistics, more GHGs burned, more global heating, more droughts, more food insecurity. Meanwhile, Bolsonaro is trying to create a favourable regulative environment for the fossil fuel industry.

Another thread is that this drought has been worsened by the very process that made Brazil one of the world’s largest producers of corn and soy in the first place: aggressive deforestation and the forceful removal of Indigenous peoples and wildlife.

Rainforests *create* precipitation. Rainforest loss means less rain, means lower crop yields, means a crisis in labour’s reproduction, a crisis in profitability for capital, soaring food insecurity, potential social upheavals, and so on. Elliptical.

Global food prices post biggest jump in decade
https://amp.ft.com/content/8b5f4b4d-cbf8-4269-af2c-c94063197bbb

Global food prices have surged by the biggest margin in a decade, as one closely watched index jumped 40 per cent in May, heightening fears that the inflation initially stoked by pandemic disruption was accelerating.

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The world’s consumer price inflation for food has already jumped 6.3 per cent in 2020, up from 4.6 per cent in 2019, according to the FAO as the pandemic played havoc with global supply chains, affecting the production and distribution of food. South America, with 21 per cent food price inflation, Africa and South Asia with 12 per cent and Oceania with 8 per cent were among the most affected regions.

The latest jump in food commodity prices reflected China’s soaring appetite for grain and soyabeans is adding to upward pressure on prices, along with a severe drought in Brazil and growing demand for vegetable oil for biodiesel, said analysts.

TUHO: myslim ze hlubsi diskuze by byla zajmava, ale sem uz to nepatri :)

TADEAS:

Opinion | A 50-Year Farm Bill - The New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/opinion/05berry.html

U.S.-Sponsored Big Agriculture Is Leading to Ecological Collapse
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/05/17/big-industrialized-agriculture-climate-change-earth-systems-ecological-collapse-policy/

Industrial agriculture simplifies ecosystems, rendering us more vulnerable to threats. Transformative policies will be required to pull us back from the edge. As a start, the United States could set an example for the Global North with a 50-year farm bill.

The bill would promote ecosystem diversification and increased resilience by reducing acreage of annual grain crops from 70 percent to 10 percent or less of all cropland while scaling up perennial crops to 80 percent of farmland. The remaining 10 percent would be allocated to other crops, including a diverse array of locally produced vegetables and fruits. Soil and water-conserving perennial varieties of rice, wheat, legumes, and other food-grain crops—which are now being developed—could serve as components of diverse, perennial, multispecies communities of food crops that replicate how nature functions. The bill would promote a transition to smaller, more diverse farm operations as agricultural diversification will work most effectively not on vast, uniform acreages but as mosaics made up of many modest-sized farms.

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As Candide stresses, it is vital to move away from abstract, monocultural arguments proposing business-as-usual as the best practice for all toward more practical work in more locally attuned, diversified agricultures that respect limits—both ecological and human. It is time to scale down agriculture and enhance our resilience to coming disruptions. The transitions will not be easy. We do not yet live in the best of all worlds, but things can be otherwise than as they are. We will need new agricultures and new policies to support them abroad and at home. Let us cultivate our gardens.

TUHO: The world’s total, direct energy sector subsidies – including those to
fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear power – are estimated to have been at least USD 634 billion in 2017. These were dominated by subsidies to fossil fuels, which account for around 70% (USD 447 billion) of the total. Subsidies to renewable power generation technologies account for around
20 % of total energy sector subsidies (USD 128 billion), biofuels for about 6 % (USD 38 billion) and nuclear for at least 3 % (USD 21 billion).