Bill Maher with Gina McCarthy: Is it Too Late?

September 28, 2019

Posted by greenman3610
Filed in Crock of the Week

6 Comments »

6 Responses to “Bill Maher with Gina McCarthy: Is it Too Late?”

neilrieck Says:

September 28, 2019 at 11:20 am
Always nice to hear real news from a real scientist

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jimbills Says:

September 28, 2019 at 12:45 pm
She is funny! (not sarcastic)

Her saying that even if it is too late, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t still try is the best attitude to take.

Maher mentions Germany is fully renewable, which is true for a couple days of the year, but currently far from true for the year. Renewable growth globally stalled in 2018, which it hasn’t done for two decades:
https://www.iea.org/newsroom/news/2019/may/renewable-capacity-growth-worldwide-stalled-in-2018-after-two-decades-of-strong-e.html

The children are more active and concerned about climate change than the older generations, but the older generations are still running things. As to whether we are at a ‘tipping point’ now as a society about addressing the issue, time will tell.

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- rhymeswithgoalie Says:
  
  September 28, 2019 at 6:04 pm
  Maher mentions Germany is fully renewable, which is true for a couple days of the year, but currently far from true for the year.
  
  I also think that those statistics only apply to the public grid, while omitting the large private industrial power plants.
  
  Down in Houston there is the double whammy that oil refineries use a lot of power from coal plants to make gasoline, which is then transported via diesel tanker trucks to individual gas stations.
  
  Beware of statistics; details matter.
  
  Reply
- Canman Says:
  
  September 30, 2019 at 2:32 pm
  Bill Maher’s ignorance about Germany’s energy is just stunning! Gina McCarthy should know better and should have corrected him. According to a new Michael Slellenberger Forbes column, based on a new Kinsey report:
  
  Despite much hype, Germany still generates just 35% of its electricity from renewables. And if biomass burning, often dirtier than coal, is excluded, wind, water and solar electricity in Germany accounted for just 27% of electricity generation in 2018.
  
  But McKinsey issues its strongest warning when it comes to Germany’s increasingly insecure energy supply due to its heavy reliance on intermittent solar and wind. For three days in June 2019, the electricity grid came close to black-outs. “Only short-term imports from neighboring countries were able to stabilize the grid,” the consultancy notes.
  
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2019/09/05/renewables-threaten-german-economy-energy-supply-mckinsey-warns-in-new-report/#18e0436a8e48
  
  It’s pretty clear to me that renewables advocates will swallow any hype, and won’t even bother to look at what the other side writes.
  
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  - rhymeswithgoalie Says:
    
    October 4, 2019 at 1:18 am
    But McKinsey issues its strongest warning when it comes to Germany’s increasingly insecure energy supply due to its heavy reliance on intermittent solar and wind. For three days in June 2019, the electricity grid came close to black-outs.
    
    That was during the exceptional heat wave. Two of France’s nuclear power plants had to shut down due to overwarm “cooling” water.
    
    Many times in the past, places with pre-renewable grids have had blackouts and brownouts (sometimes rolling) during peak use times, with lower populations than today.
    
    Reply
MorinMoss Says:

September 29, 2019 at 12:37 pm
Yes, it’s too late to avoid the worst impacts because of how much heat has been built up. We’ll simply have to adapt.
We didn’t listen to Severn Suzuki when she addressed the UN a decade before Greta Thunberg was even conceived and we won’t listen to Greta because now, as then, it’s all about the economy, stupid.

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