The drop in the price battery storage is incredible, joining onshore wind and solar as now cheaper than coal, on average globally. about.bnef.com/insights/cle...
The drop in the price battery storage is incredible, joining onshore wind and solar as now cheaper than coal, on average globally. about.bnef.com/insights/cle...
Speaking of heatwaves, this new paper from UBC colleagues analyses a curious aspect of the deadly 2021 heat dome: the timing. It happened near the June solstice, rather than in mid-summer, and the longer daylength contributed to its severity. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
I appreciated playing a tiny part in this great @picscanada.bsky.social explainer video on how extreme weather affects critical infrastructure, and what we can do. It draws on the experience with heat waves, wildfires, and atmospheric river flooding in B.C. www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YZJ...
If the economy is so dependent on oil that it requires a war in the Middle East or some other devastating exogenous event to buoy oil prices and come closer to balancing budgets, maybe we're not making the best decisions.
I think you misspelled Bush and Iraq.
One of the biggest obstacles to climate action is "second order" bias: we tend to mistakenly assume other people aren't interested in the subject. From a CBC Kids show:
Hope is form of climate action. I recorded this message for the CBC Kids show "Hope or Nope":
www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7WH...
This is the best movie we have seen in quite some time. Hilarious, gonzo, oddly touching in moments. It hits even harder if you are from Toronto, it's like an accidental love letter to the city. Fellow Canadians, please go support local cinema... www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2K9...
That's not the fault of the modellers at the govt or other orgs. It is legitimately difficult work. And if policies aren't sufficiently detailed, you have to make assumptions. Say there is a target, but no policy mechanisms as of yet... you may need to assume the target is met.
Further confirmation that Canada's far off track from its 2030 target. As I mention here, the models tend to overestimate the impact of climate policies, because they represent an idealized world in which policies are fully implemented and work as intended.
www.ctvnews.ca/climate-and-...
Simon Donner, second from left, a climate scientist and professor at the University of British Columbia, stands with three other panellists behind a podium (CBC Kids News)
βI think the climate scientists and activists of my generation have done a great disservice to the next generation because we have scared the crap out of them...β
@simondonner.bsky.social stresses the importance of hope when it comes to climate change
buff.ly/UHMAeQl
Climate change blames individuals when it is big corporations at fault, say teens. @simondonner.bsky.social was one of the experts at the event. www.cbc.ca/kidsnews/pos... via @cbcnews.ca @ubcgeography.bsky.social @ires.ubc.ca
So glad to see the growing resistance to the unlawful and despicable behaviour of ICE... though melt the ice is a tough rallying cry if you are climate scientist. www.cbc.ca/news/world/r...
Years ago, when a severe storm closed the road to the family cottage, I drove down a distant dirt road I'd never been on, ditched the car, and navigating several miles through a forest and wetland back to the cottage, without a phone, GPS or map. Yet I can't seem to cancel an online subscription.
If you're interested in the implications of the Canada-China deal that cuts tariffs on some Chinese EVs, I recommend this episode of Shift Key heatmap.news/podcast/shif...
Record investment in clean energy last year. Electrified transport, renewable electricity generation and electricity grids accounted for 90% of investment, with transport up 20% despite all the talk in North America of things slowing down.
From: about.bnef.com/insights/fin...
Happy International Day of Clean Energy to all who are observant. www.un.org/en/observanc...
Yet more reason to trust projections that global oil demand will soon level off and decline
www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
Photograph depicting wave impact on the lagoon-facing shoreline in Bikenibeu, Tarawa, on February 24, 2005. Photo: Julia Mayer Not all waves are created equal. Analysis of #Kiribatiβs Tarawa lagoon shorelines show future flooding risk will not be uniform across the atoll based on wave direction line up. https://oceans.ubc.ca/2026/01/21/not-all-waves-are-created-equal/ @simondonner #JuliaMayer @UBCGeog @ubcires
Not all waves are created equal. Analysis of #Kiribatiβs Tarawa lagoon shorelines show future flooding risk will not be uniform across the atoll based on wave direction line up. oceans.ubc.ca/2026/01/21/n... @simondonner.bsky.social #JuliaMayer @ubcgeography.bsky.social @ires.ubc.ca
My calculation is based on sales from 3rd quarter of 2025, which is after the big decline (from letting the rebates expire). So, yes, sales would still be below previous levels of nothing else changes.
It's a pretty small dent in sales, not a EV strategy on its own... my math involved some very generous assumptions (Chinese EVs replace gas vehicle sales, the 49,000 is per year, etc).
How would the new deal to cut tariffs on up to 49,000 Chinese EVs affect uptake? By my math, in the maximum case, battery EVs would move from 5.5% of sales to 8.1% of sales. This is potentially a *small* start of a much-needed overhaul of EV strategy in Canada. What comes next matters the most.
Sure, but breaking records every year creates a trend...
I say "steady" because there is less year-to-year natural variability in total ocean heat content than in air temperatures. The figure is from a new paper in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences: link.springer.com/article/10.1...
Because the ocean absorbs >90% of the heat trapped in the climate system due to human enhancement of the greenhouse effect, the best and most steady measure of global warming is the change in ocean heat content.
It continues to break records every year:
This is from the HadCRUT5 (UK dataset). Other datasets have similar orders. Before 1850, global average temperature is estimated via proxies, rather than direct measurements, and annual values have greater uncertainty.
Warmest years, in order, since records began in 1800s. Seeing a pattern here...
2024
2023
2025
2016
2020
2019
2017
2015
2022
2021
2018
2010
2014
2013
2005
2009
2007
1998
2012
2006
2002
2003
2011
2001
I recommend reading the article. The issue isn't that the world won't need oil, but that the market for Canadian heavy oil is predicted to decline sharply.