Name: Climate change update: Technological good news vs. political bad news
Start: 2025-08-10T16:00:00-07:00
End: 2025-08-10T17:30:00-07:00
Location: Urban Plates

August seems like a good month for a climate update. The bad news is obvious, especially the Trump Administration's methodical, government-wide, and complete abandonment of all climate change fighting efforts. These include or will include repealing the EPA's finding that greenhouse gases are an air pollutant, ending critical data collection (NOAA, NASA) and stopping all USG financial support for academic and private sector climate R&D. They will try to sabotage international efforts to work the problem.

The last one should be easy. Most of the world's other nations are not doing nearly enough as it is. A major transformation of global energy systems must occur, as this summary of the [10 grim key findings](https://www.wri.org/insights/2023-ipcc-ar6-synthesis-report-climate-change-findings) of the latest (2023) IPCC study explain. The planet is already 2 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than pre-industrial levels, and the worst-case scenario is to be a catastrophic 6-10 degrees Fahrenheit above by 2100!

So, what's the good news? As several links below discuss, enough key technological advances have been made already that the green energy revolution is here - now. The obstacles are still huge. The cost to build out a planet-wide new energy system is vast. There are big technical bottlenecks (like the rare earth dearth). And, of course, gigantic political obstacles - notably unshakable denial from American conservatives, political influence of the fossil fuel industry, the AI industry's insatiable need for electricity, and many more.

But being hopeless makes us part of the problem. There really is some good news along with all the catastrophic bad news. Here are some optional backgrounders on both.

**Optional background -**

**The Problem –**
-- [10 key findings](https://www.wri.org/insights/2023-ipcc-ar6-synthesis-report-climate-change-findings) of the last IPCC report, same as above.
\-\- Key point: *[Why](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-28/climate-change-global-pollutants)*[ this is history's worst and hardest to solve environmental problem](https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-10-28/climate-change-global-pollutants).

**Trump Administration Assault –**
-- [All USG climate policies will be eliminated](https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/08/analysis-the-trump-administrations-assault-on-climate-action/), plus as many state policies as they can stop. **Strongly recommended**.
-- [April similar summary](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/02/climate/trump-us-climate-policy-changes.html), Better, but earlier and NYT.

**The Good News - the Green Revolution is here!**
-- [Krugman on the amazing recent progress in green energy, but that this President demands we miss out on](https://open.substack.com/pub/paulkrugman/p/real-men-burn-stuff?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=y8p0k). **Recommended**.
\-\- More details: [The battery revolution means the internal combustion engine's dominance is ending](https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-triumph-of-electromagnetism-over?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email). This [one chart](https://x.com/Noahpinion/status/1805053638181835093) shows spectacular growth of solar power.

DavidG

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