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¶ Turkey will focus its efforts on local renewable energy projects to cut back on costly imports of up to $40 billion annually for energy. Geothermal energy projects will play a part in that. The Energy and Natural Resources Minister said Turkey will focus more on domestic and renewable energy investments in the future. [ThinkGeoEnergy]

Istanbul (source: flickr / John Virgolin, creative commons)

¶ Australian Chief Scientist has outlined the case for serious and urgent reform in Australia’s energy markets. He said consumers are at the center of a massive and “unstoppable” transition to a grid based around wind and solar power. The technical solutions exist, but market structures and the supporting policies are also needed. [CleanTechnica]

¶ The latest coal predictions from the International Energy Agency say global coal demand growth will falter in the next 5 years as the appetite for it wanes…

How Carbon Emissions Explain Trump’s Win
For Democrats, the lingering question of whether it was demographic or economic anxiety that primarily motivated Donald Trump’s coalition is a little like poet Robert Frost asking whether the world will end in fire or ice.
The answer may be the same, too. Frost, of course, concluded that either would do the job. “I hold with those who favor fire,” he wrote, before adding: “for destruction ice/Is also great/And would suffice.” Likewise, with Trump, the accumulating evidence suggests his core voters feel eclipsed by both the cultural and economic changes reshaping American life.
Trump’s polarizing appeal has deepened the existing geographic and demographic fault lines in American politics into a chasm so imposing it could mark the border between two countries. On one side, Hillary Clinton routed Trump in the racially and culturally diverse metropolitan centers that are helping forge a globalized, information-based, and…

Alaska wildfires linked to climate change

Flames from the Funny River Wildfire flare up on May 24, 2016 in Soldotna, Alaska. The wildfire started unusually early in the season and burned nearly 200,000 acres on the Kenai Peninsula. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion)

Flames from the Funny River Wildfire flare up on May 24, 2016 in Soldotna, Alaska. The wildfire started unusually early in the season and burned nearly 200,000 acres on the Kenai Peninsula. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/Peninsula Clarion)

2015 was a headline grabbing year for extreme weather events. Massive floods, extreme drought and low snowpack were seen around the globe.

In Alaska, wildfires scorched over 5 million acres of land. Now the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is taking a closer look and trying to figure out what caused them.
James Partain, a NOAA climatologist, said he can’t go anywhere without someone asking about climate change. His…

Glee to gloom: Climate and the ‘Trump effect’
When the world triumphantly celebrated the signing of the landmark Paris climate pact last December, it was hard to imagine that only a year later it might face an existential threat.

Then again, who could have predicted at the time that a self-promoting reality TV impressario—and avowed climate sceptic—was months away from capturing the White House?
“The Paris Agreement was bound to be tested sooner or later,” said Myles Allen, head of the climate research programme at the University of Oxford’s Environmental Change Institute.
“It has just come sooner than most expected.”

Campaign promises to “cancel” the 196-nation deal notwithstanding, there are reasons to think that US President-elect Donald Trump will not seek to derail it, or that he would fail if he tried.
For one thing, the first universal action plan for curbing global warming—in force since last month—has already been…

“Science is my passion, politics is my duty,” explained Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s first Secretary of State.

In sharp contrast is ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, the man President-elect Donald Trump has picked to be the newest Secretary of State. Tillerson has worked his entire life for a company that dedicated itself to suppressing climate science and spreading disinformation about the gravest threat Americans, and indeed all of human civilization, faces today.

For nearly two decades — including the entire time Jefferson was vice president and president — he was also president of the nation’s oldest scientific society, which was founded by the great American scientist Ben Franklin.

America was created during the Age of Reason, so it’s no surprise many founding fathers had a passion for science. Historian Gary Wills called the Declaration of Independence a “scientific paper.”

Fast-forward to today and both the incoming president and vice president, along with roughly the entire…

A young polar bear sitting on the shore in southern Beaufort Sea, Alaska. In some parts of the Arctic, sea ice loss is causing polar bears to spend longer periods on shore each summer. Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service/Eric Regehr

From the Arctic to the Mojave Desert, terrestrial and marine habitats are rapidly changing. These changes impact animals that are adapted to specific ecological niches, sometimes displacing them or reducing their numbers. From their privileged vantage point, satellites are particularly well-suited to observe habitat transformation and help scientists forecast impacts on the distribution, abundance and migration of animals.
In a press conference Monday at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, three researchers discussed how detailed satellite observations have facilitated ecological studies of change over time. The presenters discussed how changes in Arctic sea ice cover have helped scientists predict a 30 percent drop in the global population…

“If Trump turns off the satellites, California will launch its own damn satellite.” — Jerry Brown

“Creating lists of employees smacks of McCarthyism and should cease immediately.” — The Union of Concerned Scientists

“Fear is palpable among U.S. climate scientists over Trump moves” — The Japan Times

“Assaults on science are characteristic of non-democratic, authoritarian, fascist governments. We worry it is going to get worse.” Dr Peter Gleick

“We’ve got more sun than you’ve got oil.” — Jerry Brown

*****

Donald Trump hasn’t even taken office yet. But the war on climate science that he promised on the campaign trail has already begun. And in response, the good and necessary resistance is starting to form.

Last week, PEOTUS sent a chill through the scientific community when his transition team delivered a 74 question document to the Department of Energy asking for the names of all personnel who’ve worked on…