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If the Texas solar boom, the biggest in the USA, has little to do with Bidenomics, are we exaggerating the impact of Bidenomics? Rather than the shiny new tax incentives is it more general factors such as the plunging cost of PVs driving the renewable surge in the USA. Or, if policy is indeed the key, are state-level measures in Texas making the difference? Or, is this unfair to the IRA? Are its main effects still to come? Will it pile-on a boom that is already underway?

What did I learn?

First, when we compare the US renewable energy trajectory with the global picture, there is little reason to believe that Bidenomics has, so far, produced an exceptional US trajectory.

The United States is now enduring its warmest year on record, and the 13 warmest years for the entire planet have all occurred since 1998, according to data that stretches back to 1880.  No one day’s weather can be tied to global warming, of course, but more than a decade’s worth of changing weather surely can be, scientists say.

Over the last several years, the governments of the United States, Europe and China have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on clean-energy research and deployment. And despite some high-profile flops, like ethanol and Solyndra, the investments seem to be succeeding more than they are failing.

the clean-energy push has been successful enough to leave many climate advocates believing it is the single best hope for preventing even hotter summers, more droughts and bigger brush fires. “Carbon pricing is going to have an uphill climb in the U.S. for the foreseeable future,” says Robert N. Stavins, a Harvard economist who is a leading advocate for such pricing, “so it does make sense to think about other things.” Those others things, in the simplest terms, are policies intended to help find a breakthrough technology that can power the economy without heating the planet. “Our best hope,” says Benjamin H. Strauss, a scientist who is the chief operating officer of Climate Central, a research group, “is some kind of disruptive technology that takes off on its own, the way the Internet and the fax took off.”

the secrets of Dubai are slowly seeping out. This is a city built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery. Dubai is a living metal metaphor for the neo-liberal globalised world that may be crashing – at last – into history.

There are three different Dubais, all swirling around each other. There are the expats, like Karen; there are the Emiratis, headed by Sheikh Mohammed; and then there is the foreign underclass who built the city, and are trapped here. They are hidden in plain view. You see them everywhere, in dirt-caked blue uniforms, being shouted at by their superiors, like a chain gang – but you are trained not to look. It is like a mantra: the Sheikh built the city. The Sheikh built the city. Workers? What workers?

Sahinal Monir, a slim 24-year-old from the deltas of Bangladesh. "To get you here, they tell you Dubai is heaven. Then you get here and realise it is hell," he says. Four years ago, an employment agent arrived in Sahinal's village in Southern Bangladesh. He told the men of the village that there was a place where they could earn 40,000 takka a month (£400) just for working nine-to-five on construction projects. It was a place where they would be given great accommodation, great food, and treated well. All they had to do was pay an up-front fee of 220,000 takka (£2,300) for the work visa – a fee they'd pay off in the first six months, easy. So Sahinal sold his family land, and took out a loan from the local lender, to head to this paradise. As soon as he arrived at Dubai airport, his passport was taken from him by his construction company. He has not seen it since. He was told brusquely that from now on he would be working 14-hour days in the desert heat – where western tourists are advised not to stay outside for even five minutes in summer, when it hits 55 degrees – for 500 dirhams a month (£90), less than a quarter of the wage he was promised. If you don't like it, the company told him, go home. "But how can I go home? You have my passport, and I have no money for the ticket," he said. "Well, then you'd better get to work," they replied.

Francis’ embrace of the issue of climate change, and his broader critique of global capitalism, stem from his signature economic concern: eradicating poverty.

In the encyclical, Francis writes of “the intimate relationship between the poor and the fragility of the planet,” and says, “Both everyday experience and scientific research show that the gravest effects of all attacks on the environment are suffered by the poorest.”

He added, “As the effects of climate change worsen, we know that escaping poverty will become even more difficult.”

Tuesday that the two nations – which together account for over one third of all greenhouse gas pollution – have reached a groundbreaking deal to reduce carbon emissions and tackle the growing crisis of global climate change.

The U.S. would double its pace of carbon reduction from 1.2% a year through 2020 to 2.3-2.8% a year afterward, ultimately cutting its total greenhouse gas emissions by 26% to 28% from 2005 levels by 2025.

“This is a major milestone,” President Obama said at a joint press conference with Chinese President Xi Jinping. “This is an ambitious goal, but this is an achievable goal.”

In a major setback for President Obama’s climate change agenda, the Supreme Court on Tuesday temporarily blocked the administration’s effort to combat global warming by regulating emissions from coal-fired power plants.

The brief order was not the last word on the case, which is most likely to return to the Supreme Court after an appeals court considers an expedited challenge from 29 states and dozens of corporations and industry groups.But the Supreme Court’s willingness to issue a stay while the case proceeds was an early hint that the program could face a skeptical reception from the justices.The 5-to-4 vote, with the court’s four liberal members dissenting, was unprecedented — the Supreme Court had never before granted a request to halt a regulation before review by a federal appeals court.

In negotiating that deal, which requires every country to enact policies to lower emissions, Mr. Obama pointed to the power plant rule as evidence that the United States would take ambitious action, and that other countries should follow.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry hailed the newly passed international climate change agreement as a major achievement that could help turn the tide on global warming, but got a quick reminder that Republicans will fight it all the way.

Obama said the climate agreement made Saturday night by almost 200 nations "can be a turning point for the world" and credited his administration for playing a key role. He and Kerry predicted it would prompt widespread spending on clean energy and help stem carbon pollution blamed for global warming.

The immediate reaction of leading Republican critics was a stark reminder of the conflict that lies ahead.

suddenly, Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius of France asked for opposition to the deal and, hearing none, gaveled the session closed.

The new accord changes that dynamic by requiring action in some form from every country, rich or poor. The echoes of those divides persisted during the negotiations, however.

Mr. Fabius, who has presided over the assembly, made an emotional appeal.

Obama warns Putin on intervening in Syria's civil war

Obama said he does not disagree with Putin -- with whom he met on Monday -- on the necessity of a political resolution to Syria's conflict.

The President was one of nearly 150 world leaders gathering outside the city to agree on carbon reduction targets.

The largest group of world leaders ever to stand together kicked off two weeks of high-stakes climate talks outside Paris on Monday, saying that striking an ambitious deal to curb global warming can show terrorists what countries can achieve when they are united.

The U.N.-organized gathering of 151 heads of state and government comes at a somber time for France, two weeks after militants linked to the Islamic State group killed 130 people around Paris. Fears of more attacks prompted extra-high security and a crackdown on environmental protests.

The conference is aimed at the most far-reaching deal ever to tackle global warming. The last major agreement, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, required only rich countries to cut carbon dioxide emissions, and the U.S. never signed on. Since then, global temperatures and sea levels have continued to rise, and the Earth has seen an extraordinary run of extreme weather.

There is a deep reluctance to engage because of the received wisdom that it is not the place of governments or civil society to intrude into people’s lives and tell them what to eat.”

Other scientists have proposed a meat tax to curb consumption, but the report concludes that keeping meat eating to levels recommended by health authorities would not only lower emissions but also reduce heart disease and cancer.

The research does not show everyone has to be a vegetarian to limit warming to 2C, the stated objective of the world’s governments,” said Bailey.

The next ice age may have been delayed by over 50,000 years because of the greenhouse gases put in the atmosphere by humans, scientists in Germany say.

They analysed the trigger conditions for a glaciation, like the one that gripped Earth over 12,000 years ago.

Earth is set for a prolonged warm phase

One advantage of the Green New Deal framework is that it combines immediate concerns about pollution with more abstract discussions about carbon emissions. There are immense political benefits to this approach

Forty-six percent of likely voters supported the policy and 34 percent opposed it. (The rest were unsure.) Obama-Trump voters narrowly favored the policy (45 percent in support and 39 percent opposed), and moderates supported it 44 percent to 27 percent.

Civis Analytics modeled two-way (that is, they excluded “don’t knows”) support in states and found that vulnerable Republican senators have reason to fear Mr. McConnell’s antics: In Colorado, Cory Gardner’s state, 60 percent of likely voters supported the Green New Deal, and in North Carolina, Thom Tillis’s state, 56 percent did. In Maine, where Susan Collins is likely to face a tough re-election battle, 57 percent of likely voters supported the Green New Deal and in Iowa, a wind-heavy state where Democrats hope to pick up a Senate seat, 54 percent did.

Our politics, our societies, are arranged around individual and group interests.

From that beginning, we construct the three overlapping, interacting R’s of recognition, representation and rights.

with climate change, as an existential challenge to humanity, is that the interest-based model of society and politics doesn’t work. Most of the people in whose interest we are demanding action aren’t here. They haven’t been born yet.

the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication polled 1,067 registered voters on climate change. The study found that while they disagree on the cause, majorities in both parties agree that the world is experiencing global warming and call for government action to address it.

The poll asked whether the United States should “set strict carbon dioxide emission limits on existing coal-fired power plants to reduce global warming and improve public heath,” even if “the cost of electricity to consumers and companies would likely increase.” Eighty-seven percent of Democrats and 56 percent of Republicans said yes.

Should the United States require fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax and use the money to reduce other taxes (such as income tax) by an equal amount? Eighty-four percent of Democrats and 56 percent of Republicans said yes.

It was the sort of campaign appearance that Mette Frederiksen, leader of the left-leaning Social Democrats, would have ordinarily considered friendly terrain — a gathering of environmentally minded students in her hometown, Aalborg, in Denmark. Except the students demanded whether Ms. Frederiksen knew the carbon footprint of the red roses her party gave away at campaign stops.She didn’t. And the students — who also criticized her climate policy for failing to mention the Paris accord — didn’t let her forget it.

“We want action. Something must happen,” said Mathilde Christiansen, a senior.

Four years ago, climate change barely registered as an election concern in Denmark. But in a nation that juts into the North and Baltic Seas, polls now show that 46 percent of voters rank climate change as their top concern, compared to 27 percent in 2017.

It turns out that the dates on our food labels do not have much to do with food safety. In many cases, expiration dates do not indicate when the food stops being safe to eat — rather, they tell you when the manufacturer thinks that product will stop looking and tasting its best

Some foods, such as deli meats, unpasteurized milk and cheese, and prepared foods such as potato salad that you do not reheat, probably should be tossed after their use-by dates for safety reasons.

84 percent of consumers at least occasionally throw out food because it is close to or past its package date, and over one third (37 percent) say they always or usually do so

our “America First” president ought to be viewed in a global context

surveys taken more than a year before Election Day are meaningless

Mr. Trump benefits from incumbency and continued economic recovery, and he’s riding a wave of national populism that has yet to crest.

few wrong ideas have been more persistent than the fear of too many people

In a famous 1980 wager, Simon bet an author of “The Population Bomb,” Stanford University’s Paul Ehrlich, that resources would actually become more plentiful, not less, as the population grew

he won the bet: In a little more than 10 years, the price of a representative set of commodities fell by more than half — a clear signal that supply was outstripping demand.