#1594 Testing New Climate Solutions: Geothermal and Geo-Engineering
Best of the Left - Leftist Perspectives on Progressive Politics, News, Culture, Economics and Democracy
Jay Tomlinson
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 26 November 2023
⏱️ 73 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Air Date 11/26/2023
As the hottest year in 125,000 years or so begins to come to a close, we turn to two projects still in their infancy that have big plans to decarbonize our electricity generation on one hand and give us a bit more time to turn our climate futures around on the other. The first is a reinvigoration of the geothermal power industry with the hopes of scaling up globally and the second is geo-engineering which aims to reduce the solar radiation hitting the planet to reduce devastating climate impacts while the world finishes up the work of going carbon neutral. Both ideas are a little scary, either or both could be brilliant or disastrous. The two things that are clear to me are that failure in the face of climate chaos will definitely be disastrous and any ideas with a reasonable chance of helping deserve further study.
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SHOW NOTES
Tune into this episode of Weathered to see where we’ve been in our race against the clock, where we’re going, and how the RCP scenarios can help us understand this story as well as our future on this planet.
Ch. 2: Batteries are dirty. Geothermal power can help. - Vox - Air Date 11-1-22
Lithium-ion batteries are a transformative technology in the fight against climate change. Most notably, they power electric vehicles, which have the potential to replace emissions produced by road transportation. But there’s a problem.
Deep beneath your feet is a molten ball of energy the same temperature as the surface of the sun -- an immense clean energy source that could power the world thousands of times over, says technologist and climate activist Jamie C. Beard. How do we tap it?
Ch. 4: A Messy and Unhinged Introduction to Geoengineering - vlogbrothers - Air Date 10-4-23
Describing the most dangerous way to save the world
Ch. 5: Smog Cloud Silver Lining - Radiolab - Air Date 9-22-23
Summer 2023 was a pretty scary one for the planet. Global temperatures in June and July reached record highs. And over in the North Atlantic Sea, the water temperature spiked to off-the-chart levels.
Ch. 6: How to think about solar radiation management - Volts - Air Date 2-24-23
Even if greenhouse gas emissions halted entirely right now, we would continue to feel climate change effects for decades due to existing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere — and warming could accelerate
FINAL COMMENTS
Ch. 7: Final comments and interview with Mike Tidwell about the arguments for and against geo-engineering
MUSIC (Blue Dot Sessions)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | During today's episode I'm going to be telling you about a show I think you should check out. |
| 0:07.0 | It's the Talking Politics and Religion Without Killing Each Other Podcast. |
| 0:12.0 | And come to think of it, I probably should have promoted that before |
| 0:14.5 | Thanksgiving but anyway take a moment to hear what I have to say about them in the middle of the show and then |
| 0:19.3 | listen wherever you get your podcasts and, welcome to this episode of the award-winning |
| 0:25.4 | Best of the Left Podcast. |
| 0:27.3 | As the hottest year in about 125,000 years or so |
| 0:31.2 | begins to come to a close, we turn to two projects still in their infancy |
| 0:37.1 | that have big plans to decarbonize our electricity generation on one hand and give us a bit more time to turn our |
| 0:46.0 | climate futures around on the other. The first is a reinvigoration of the |
| 0:51.8 | geothermal power industry with the hopes of scaling up globally. |
| 0:56.8 | And the second is geoengineering, which aims to reduce the solar radiation hitting the planet to reduce devastating climate impacts |
| 1:05.8 | while the world finishes up the work of going carbon neutral. |
| 1:09.9 | Both ideas are a little scary. |
| 1:12.0 | Either or both could be brilliant or disastrous. |
| 1:16.3 | But the two things that are clear to me are that failure in the face of climate chaos |
| 1:20.5 | will definitely be disastrous, and any ideas with a reasonable chance of |
| 1:25.9 | helping deserve further study. Sources today include PBS Tara |
| 1:31.2 | Vox, a TED Talk from Jamie C Beard, the Vlog Brothers, Volts, and Radio Lab, |
| 1:39.7 | and I will close the show today with an interview with climate activist Mike Tidwell to get a bit further |
| 1:45.5 | into some of the arguments and counter arguments surrounding geoengineering and members will get an |
| 1:51.0 | extended version of that interview. |
... |
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